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Fortune telling: Nin

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On the Wane I

For many the summer of ’82 was marked by the province’s fencing school and the doings of the practitioners of defence; namely Achirawit making self-evident his poor character through giving a revenge blow for what he thought was an insult given by another battlesword practitioner. It was unbecoming of a man who had reached the station of freefencer in so few years; fewer than the head of the fencing school even.

More importantly the man he had struck Ging was my friend - my junior.

Though that would not be the last time cruelty blighted the life of the youth and his intimates as roughly three or four months later Baiyok was unknowingly defiled and bore the fruit of the congress for some time before seeking our help. In the third month of ’83 shortly after purging the child from her womb Nin myself was attacked in my own house by the badman who spearheaded the rape: Vanida. Once an intimate to Baiyok she was later sold to slavery after her father lost an embezzlement case and became a bankrupt. She hated Baiyok for staying her hand when her father had the means to make under-the-table deals; the same sort her father made to ensure Baiyok became an apprentice of the barbershop she wished.

In a few short years she learned the old Art of fleshcrafting and led a flock of mankillers fraudsmen and those of likewise low character. With her Art she stole inked skin from our countrymen and placed them on her folk so they claim false names false hometowns and false lords they answer to. The clan ran from one province to another and by ’82 they were in Silverport.

Nin myself and my intimates found them lingering at the edges of the province; the once bustling Jinfolk Wharf; and set upon them the same hurt we had given to the Suwunsingh family ten years ago through our Art but before we could kill Vanida we had to flee due to wounds of our own.

Silverport did not become anymore peaceable by ’83 - the remotest opposite in fact. Quarrels between the youths university students serpents peace officers and Nightwatch grew common but the fruit of such doings were the same; the seaside part of the province turning into a shithole in both sight and smell.

The clan showed itself again during the summer; soon after the shootists’ festival we found Vanida and a few of her fellows stealing powder from forts and fleeing through a canal running through a spot in the southeast. We killed her fellows and stopped the six-limbed mankiller for good though I myself took many blows from her and had it not been for Baiyok the hurt would have been grave.

Our matter became known but by the month’s end the peace officers and the common folk were willing to look the other way. The work was too great. The hurt was between men of little mention. The canals and roads needed cleaning.

It is nearing winter now though the might of such a season is quite scant in a spot so far south of the country. Whilst my limbs have long healed since the affray with the outlaws a disagreeable feeling lingered in my belly due the recent choosing of Baiyok and Waroon; following an ask about Waroon’s willingness to force upon her an abortion the two quarreled and it became a matter of honor - a matter which demanded a duel to settle.

“Good day, senior.” Rising from the stiff straw mats of the teahouse and greeting me is the youth Ging. There is golden yellow at the tips of his hair and more ink on the underside of his left wrist since I saw it last - not that I blame him for not wishing to be part of the peace officers or Nightwatch at this time.

“Good day, junior.” I return the greeting and sit down.

“Waroon will not be joining us, senior?” He asks as I free the undulate sword and its belt from my shoulder.

“For now, no.”
“…”
“I hear you are eighteen years of age now. How is it?”

“I liked the aera of my youth more, quite frankly.” Ging turns away as he laughs. “Though...”

There is little joy in his voice.

“I would have liked drinking with you and my fellows at the alehouse.”

“I would have liked it as well, junior.”

There needn’t be very many words before our better halves join us at the table.

“Had you not known me as intimately, would your choice have been different, senior?” Not wholly willing to face us our junior glances at her cup of mango sherbet as she asks.

In the infinite blackness her words linger in the air for some time.

“I doubt it would have made a difference to me.” The silence is broken by a few unfeeling words from Waroon.

“How are you much different from Vanida, then.” The partly murmured pondering from Baiyok changed that. For a very brief moment Waroon recoiled as if struck on the face and right away clasped a hand on her mouth. I’m quite sure she must have bared her fangs without thought.

“Oh, child.” As her fingers slowly leave her lips so do a few words in a gentle tone.

you know what is to follow, jiragarn. Suwunsingh twitches and shudders once he feels it - the scantly veiled anger in her throat.

you could stop her.
I suppose I could.

“You know, child. I have seen your sort before. Folk who were violated, folk whose rule over their own body was taken from them. It adulterates them. Some forsake their want for coition all together. Some think their only worth in life comes from coition. Some live in fear. Some live, seeking hurt and doing hurt to those who try to help them.”
“All that is to say, child.”
“I’ve seen children raped far more violently and longer than you yet they retain enough of their faculty to not say something so thoughtless.”

“That-”
“That was cruel.” Like a whipped dog Baiyok turns away and grows quiet.

“And so was your doing.”
“Putting us near her- that’s grave enough an insult! And was it not you who gave the first blow by insinuating- no, saying a woman who forced a child into your belly and the folk who purged that difficulty are the same.”

“Tch.” Hearing her huff and seeing her pale yellow fangs peek through her lips again I rest a hand on her lap. It slows the pace of her breathing if only by a little.

“A mankiller and a barber are one and the same because stitching a wound gives the same amount of hurt as slicing open flesh and skin??? You insult me. You insult us. I would have told you to take back such words or stand -- were we not presently in the circumstance which demands it.”

“That was-”
“That was never.”
“My intention, senior.”
“I only-”
“I didn’t wish you to be-”
“To walk a road that is.”
“Ugly.”
“Like her.”

“Ah.” Waroon lowers her head and brings a knee upright before resting a hand on it. Her fingers curl up a little more than she realizes. There is only silence as the two giants look away from each other.

Again Waroon was the first to break the silence. “Why do we walk such roads and make such choosings. I suppose I ought to make evident now.”

“I’m sure you remember this picture.” Waroon raises a hand and opens her palm. From the blackness I summon the nearshore part of Silverport; sprouting around us are the lanes and its many eating places; canals whose water were only a little lighter than gravy on the best of days; and alleys folk seldom spare a look as they walk past.

“But that’s not really the case anymore, is it.” She makes a fist and the picture changes to the one we know far too intimately these days; puddles of murky water around around roadsides; mounds of grease covered plantain leaves and half eaten food in alleys and lesser traveled parts of the road; and canals whose waters have since turned black and foul smelling.

“These difficulties are not the doing of a single man, rather, the fruit of the elections of many -- folkway, ensouled and in the middle of quickening. Bits and pieces of unsightly things on the road won’t straightaway rot a man’s heart but such things will chaff and scrape it and given time the unsightly, the shunned, the shame of a district, becomes the common sight. Our normality becomes one that is a little more coarse, a little more ugly.”

“And a gathering of folkways and normalities -- agreed upon ‘truths’ -- is that not what a folk is?”

“I’m unsure as to what you intend to say.” Some of the fear and worry vanishes from our junior’s voice as she asks.

“Shame is above all else the sword which lingers above man’s head. Through this channel folkways are born -- and folkways are not without fault.”

“Take for example the sword. Though the particulars vary from one province to another there is nothing in the freefolk groundlaw which prohibits women from the carrying of swords, yet we do not see them with it, no, in its stead as means of defence are long knives, pipes, flutes, fans and the sort.” With all of her fingers excepting the thumb together Waroon points at the sheathed long knife by our junior’s side before resting it on her breast. “Why?”

“Because the sword exists outside our station. It is man, rather, who is expected to bear the fighting weapons.”

“And even he has his borders clearly marked. My Nin carries his close-hilted sword and dagger under his arm like his forebears. Your Ging carries it through a belt which hangs a sheath at his hip like many his age. But very, very few men carry their daggers behind them resting on their bum.”
“Why.”
“Because they don’t wish to be mistaken for low company; men with cruel dispositions and a want to gamble oft wear them in such a way and in turn the picture of the bum-dagger has been with us ever since it was brought to this country.”

“A matter mayhaps closer to our station would be the trade and consequently abortion, the latter of which is shunned by both law and man. If you were to ask why that is the case you could find a hundred and eight reasons; some say the Middle Path’s instructions to not take and oppress life unnecessarily mean the undoing of the unborn is needless hurt; some fear race suicide - the freefolk killing their future whilst more fruitful races such as the mussulman, guests, or kirishitan are taken in; but the chief reason is: self-perpetuation is an inalienable part of a folk.”

“Convenience of the female sex isn’t.”

As the bits of Silverport return to nothingness another piece of our past takes their place; sprouting from the blackness around us are women. I don’t quite remember how many either but if I had to guess it must have been a few hundreds. The names and faces of whom have gotten foggier over the years.

“You once asked what is our doing and the intent behind it. These are the fruits of our election. Small nudges against folkways which have long since taken root.”
“And those little nudges paint quite the picture, don’t they.”

Baiyok looks around for a moment. It does not take long to find herself and Unshun amongst the flock.

“How lives -- do you think -- has Vanida saved, child? One-tenth of this? One-hundredth?” Waroon lightly tilts her head and rests an elbow on the table as she asks. “Mayhaps a comparison was never warranted in the first place, don’t you think?”

This is good work Waroon has done; chiseling away at the thought which upholds her willingness to duel us.

“I suppose-”
“I suppose so.”
“But--”

I do not let our junior stir for long and with a raise of a hand banish the blackness from the room. The talk can continue with more food and drink on our table.

With the year reaching its middle the mangoes are once again in season. They make for good if a little sweet sherbets. As for the pork rind I found them to be middling; hard on my teeth and lacking in salt. Out of the bunch I’d say the coconut milk hotcakes were the best - a cut above those greasy and spring onion garnished ones Oubshei often bought.

After exhausting the sherbet from her cup our junior is the first to break the silence. “The difficulties on that road must have been great. What kept you at it?”

“Without doubt it was knowing some of my countrymen believed in the same dream. Men. Women. Children. My elders. My fellows. Through might bestowed upon them by their stations they helped push our folkway a little further and further.” As our folk sprout from the blackness a bittersweet feeling makes its way up my throat.

“They staked their lives for our dream. Without them we would have remained unlearnt.” Waroon opens her palm and appearing in her hand is a glass jar. Floating in its waters is a womb which has not lost its pink and redness yet. “In case you are wondering, she yet lives, though we have long parted ways.”

Our junior opens her lips for a moment before closing it and turning her head away.

“…”
“If there is nothing else, junior, I’d like to end this here: I take back my words, you take back yours.” Waroon extends her hand and gingerly touches our junior’s fingertips.

“There is.”
“There is one thing.”

With a little reluctance she pulls away. “You’ve shown us the folk you have saved.”

Right away Waroon knows the words which went unspoken. “You are thinking of the other side, aren’t you.”

“I am.”

“Lives are not equal, child. I think I’ve said this before.” With a sigh she explains. “When we said Vanida was gone, we did not mention all the particulars of that matter out of respect for your friendship with her. The case is the same here. Do you truly wish to know, in spite of the hurt it will bring?”

“I can’t look away and eat the fruits without knowing the pains you took to harvest them, can I.”

As much as it pleases me to see our junior follow our thoughts I’m unsure whether now is a good time.

>“I suppose you can’t.” [ Reveal killcount ]

It’s alright, Nin. Right as I turn to look at her Waroon slaps a hand on my shoulder and pushes her thought onto my mind.

she will see you in a different light. Suwunsingh notes.

No doubt. But that’s her choosing. We have been with her, instructed her and she followed our ways to this point. To veil ourselves now when it is convenient would mean betraying the very truths we believe in the first place.

is it worth losing her company?

It is worth risking life and limb over it.

Suwunsingh falls silent and retreats to my lower body. A strong squeeze to my right thigh makes him shudder and twitch under her thumb.

A word, my child. You speak as if your station and his are equal. Nin is a far kinder master than I for letting you speak uncontested.

>“You needn’t. That’s the point.” [ Keep hidden ]

Not every particular needed saying. We had little need to say Vanida helped Baiyok to her present station through under-the-table dealings to her intimates; it wouldn’t good them anymore to know.

isn’t it self-seeking of you to shun earnestness when your comfort is at stake? Suwunsingh reasonably asks.

Quite right. It is. And it is well within man’s character to be self-seeking; to seek conveniences. Such a thought has always been the cornerstone of our ways.

can you truly feel comfortable being with your juniors when you have to keep them in the dark about this part of you at all times?

No doubt that disagreeable feeling would forever be with me. Such are the costs of being on this road.

Another thing, Gittipud Suwunsingh. I don’t much like your guesses of what I ought to or ought not to feel. Keep at it. I need a reason to make the hurt worse.

[ Next Update: On the Wane II ]
a fork in the road.

[ Welcome back to the third and final thread of Devil and Instructress! ]
[ link to previous threads: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Devil%20and%20Instructress%20quest ]
[ thread 1: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2025/6315850/ ]
[ thread 2: https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive/2026/6378733/ ]

>>6453283
>“I suppose you can’t.” [ Reveal killcount ]
I'm curious how the ledger shakes out. Interesting that Suwunsingh will undermine our confidence either way. What's his angle? I assumed he might just want us dead so he can reincarnate as something less awful than a parasitic worm that we periodically make relive his own suffering...

>>6453283
>“I suppose you can’t.” [ Reveal killcount ]

Voting’s closed.

>>6453795
Waiting warmly!

>>6454696
Same

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On the Wane II

>“I suppose you can’t.” [ Reveal killcount ]

With a little hesitation I expel my once intimates from the blackness and summon in their stead the badmen. Some took an uncomfortably long time to recall. Most did not.

“I-”
“I hadn’t expected so many women.”
“and children.”
“and--” Though she tries her best our junior could not stop making that face. Ging doesn’t wish to look at the herd much either and rests his head against her arm.

There is no hiding how clear this picture is. The hair around their lips and chin. Their ears. The whites and blacks of their eyes. The shape of their noses. Lengths of their limbs. Firmness of their muscles. Pustules and skin blemishes kept hidden under their dresses. Food I commonly saw in their hands.

Compared to how intimately I knew our folk it’s the difference between the heavens and earth.

“Women who stand and defend their offspring’s right to rape our countrymen and children who thought they could hide behind technicalities of the law after doing hurt.” Waroon stops our junior from dwelling in silence for too long. “It’s in man’s nature to remember one painful thought far more vividly and neglect the ten, fifteen joyous times before and since.” After a moment she lowers her head and accepts her explanation.

A decade’s worth of work laid out in its entirety yet I scantly feel anything from seeing it. A hundred and about a few dozen -- slightly less than one-fourth the folk we saved. Had the number been larger would it have bothered me? I don’t believe so. Had the number been smaller would it have comforted me? I don’t believe it either.

“I- I see.”
“But.”
“Forgive me, but I believe this woman was in the last picture.”
“Was she not a fellow of yours?”

Waroon and I both are a little surprised our junior remembered Sirivun clearly enough amongst the herds of intimates and foes. I suppose her visage was the clearer of the bunch.

“She was.”
“And she tried to turn us to something we were not; asking us to kill children because she judged the sex they were born as an inconvenience.”

“Are many of your fellows like her?”

“The few which were wayward, we corrected.”

“It seems you are the head of this flock.”

“I suppose we wer-”
“I suppose we are.”

“You kept them in check?”

“Someone had to. ‘A newborn with the undesirable sex may be purged.’ ‘I needn’t prevent conception when the means of abortion is ever within reach.’ ‘I ought to make well-known the means to know pregnancy at a sooner time.’ Shown any measure of clemency, those thoughts would deracinate the true road.”

“The true road - it was yours from the very start, wasn’t it.” Our junior dimly notes.

“Well.”
“Part of it came from agreement amongst ourselves.”
“But chiefly it was mine, yes.” After looking at her junior’s face for a moment she sighs. “Oh, child. Don’t misunderstand. Had they won out in the play the ‘true’ road would have been theirs to define.”

“That is what bothers me the most, senior. A roadway where ‘rightness’ is chiefly a matter of might and covenants are a passing thought. By your own standards, had I-”

She lowers her head and stops speaking for a moment so her voice does not waver.

“Had I not been there for you, senior, what would have panned out? Would you say the worth of senior Jiragarn’s way was less than that of Vanida’s?”
“You worry us sometimes, senior.” She gingerly brushes her fingers across Ging’s hair. “Who- or what truly keeps you in check, senior?”

“Beyond the teachings of the Middle Path, it would be our fellows, our intimates.” Waroon answers in my stead.

“If I were to ask Oubshei, Glar, or Id, would they know of this?”

“We needn’t tell our fellows every particular about ourselves.” Upon hearing her words our junior turns away as if presented with poison.

Our junior brings out a card from her purse and lays it on the table. One corner is bent and the ink has lost some of its blackness but it is unmistakably Kommgal Vunnapar’s trade card. With her middle finger she pushes it forth.

“I had a feeling.”
“Ever since Galpet was summoned here. The way he shunned the matter when I tried to talk to him about Kommgal Vunnapar.”
“You never thought him an intimate of yours, did you.”

“It is ill-advised to say you know him, child.” Firmness returns to her words as Waroon pushes the card back to her side of the table.“We all have our blemishes, hardships, particulars we wish to not speak of. Kommgal Vunnapar is very much alike in this regard. You think of him as spotless? Do you know how many times he looked the other way and let hurt befall men when it was convenient?”

Waroon takes a moment to slow her breathing and brush a thumb across her upper set of teeth. “Back in ’72 he saved Galpet from a house fire. He could have saved his mother, Amournnara, too, but claimed he was unaware of her presence.”

“I have heard about it.”

“Do you know the chief reason?”

“…”
“She sued him in the past for hurting the husband who struck her. The suit was costly and drove him away from his family and his home province.”

“That’s the commonly held picture.” I right away know what Waroon intends to say next and my hand goes to seize her arm.

Must we really speak of this, ma’am? I don’t believe Galpet wishes this to be shared. I push my thoughts to her.

We can’t afford to hide this. We’ve been truthful so far and hiding this will only weaken our case. Waroon assures me. With a sigh I weaken my grip on her arm and let her say her piece.

“But chiefly it was him knowing Amournnara forced herself on her child.”

“…”

“Finally got you to shut the fuck up, didn’t I.”

“It is ill-advised to presume our character, child. If we did not give a damn would this senior have entertained your questions for this long?”

“I don’t wish to be cruel, child.” Waroon claims. “But the chief reason I don’t listen to you is due to the fact your reasons are not sound. Two weeks have passed and I have yet to hear anything reasonable from your throat as to why I ought not to do what I did to shield you from having to bear an untimely child.”

“You say you are disgusted by such a road - yet I do not believe that to be the case at all.”

“Vanida got you through the door of your present station. She expelled another child more skilled but less well-connected than you from what would have been their rightful station. Why. Because her family had the will and the might to force upon the barbershop that choosing.”

“And since we are presently standing on the shoulders of this institution, let us speak of it: duelling. How many duels have you and your fellows have taken part in, remind me. And how many times did you have to pay the fees for breaking the peace, spent a night at a fool’s house -- or summoned to court at all? Did you think the station of your father as a peace officer had nothing to do with it?”

“At every turn, child, you’ve enjoyed the fruits of the self-seeking path. The least you could do is acknowledge it. Instead, you try to veil your disgust under moral concern and hurl it at us. So spare me the chicken shit.”

“There’s no getting through to you, is there, senior?” Our junior lowers her head and voice.

“You know what to do.”

“I must submit my claim to the higher court.” She wearily repeats the words Waroon had instructed her with a long time ago.

“Or make your present one more sound.”

“I think.”
“We both know by now that will not pan out.”
“I can’t let you denigrate yourself like this, senior.”

Ging and I both share a gaze.

“Second blood.”
“Saber.”

“Refused. The battlesword.” Waroon right away answers.

“I have only the long saber.”

“That’ll do.” Waroon says with such quickness it seems as if she knew what her junior’s words would be even before it even left her throat.

I collapse my veil and summon the teahouse attendant. This day got much longer.

Ging and I spent the better part of the day discussing the remaining particulars of the duel; the time; the place; and conduct during the duel itself.

“What about a double?” He asks.

“It ought to be the biggest bleeding wound, no?”

“In the unlikely case both wounds bleed equally, do we consider the bout void or..?”

“In the unlikely case they both bleed equally from a double, it will be considered void. In the very unlikely case it happens several times we’d abort the duel.” I try to make sure neither Waroon or our junior intends to prolong this duel by giving a blow without caring about being hit at the same time.

For a similar reason we agreed thrusts will be banned. Neither Vunnapar or Galpet will be there to glue back lungs or livers if they are touched by a point. We can’t chance our junior being gravely hurt.

A month quickly passed us by.

The south of Silverport was once home to many fisheries and salt fields. These days due to the foul waters they have shifted to the more inland part of the province. Only a handful of fisheries who grow equally tough eel for food linger here. The most common sight around dirt paths are empty fields and custard-brown canals. We needn’t walk for very long before seeing our juniors again presiding in the shadows of a large tree.

Ging and I talked to our better halves. Neither of them wished to take their words back. We both check the edges of the long sabers we brought and as expected they are only sharp enough to slice through a small bit of paper before the sword wrinkles it.

“This is a duel to second blood. As previously agreed upon, there are to be no thrusts, wrestling with two hands…” Ging again repeats the rules to the two before they begin as he holds the scabbarded long saber upright like a staff -- much like a judge of a fencing school bout.

I myself rest the barrel of her wax pistol on my shoulder.

We both lower our heads as the two undress. The last thing we wish is to wash blood off their clothes after stitching their wounds. The sun is hidden behind clouds and the large patch of dirt awaits the two.

With their clothes gathered and folded we let them attend to their weapons.

>Let Waroon stand her ground
you could have sat back and kept quiet on those matters and enjoyed their company like you did many months before. Suwunsingh notes.

I suppose I could. It would have been best. But we would have to keep denying ourselves for their sake.

does saying the truth comfort anyone besides the two of you?
This will be the last time I’ll see them. Suwunsingh guesses. It’s not a bad one.

I am well aware -- and I want our picture to be that of folk who are true to themselves and not some dog cunts who turnscoat on their own road when it is convenient.

[ Next Update: Deluge I ]

>Level the piece
Few would hear the shot. Fewer would know what it is. Fewer still would wish to wander to the spot it came from.

through this doing, you are betraying the very rule you instructed them and claimed you lived by. Suwunsingh makes me well aware of this fact.

Whether we continue with this bout or not it matters little; the company we once had will no longer be there. What is of mention is the only play to I can make; shielding Waroon from hurt.

she could bear the hurt.

And so could Baiyok.

[ skip Deluge ]
[Next Update: Epilogue - Like Poison ]

>>6455546
>Let Waroon stand her ground
If we're going to claim that might makes right, and that we are upholding any sort of honor, we can't take the easy out to avoid this test.

>>6455550
>Epilogue
already?

>>6455549
>Level the piece
yea lets wrap it up

>>6455580
Originally MoR was going to be the last entry IIRC.

>>6455580
Originally I wanted the story to conclude in the previous chapters thread. Didn’t have enough time for it before it fell off the board.

Since this is one the most important decisions in this thread, I’ll be waiting for a third vote for some time before doing a dice tiebreaker. Deluge-route epilogue is very different to LP epilogue.

>>6455547
>Let Waroon stand her ground
Let them fight without helping anyone