Board Thread:Role Plays/@comment-25389303-20191221164519/@comment-5999656-20191226064341

Zanipher stared at Diaboli for a long moment, clearly cycling through a number of conflicting emotions before abruptly turning away with a sigh and pushing the heavy metal door open. She strode out onto the sun-beaten rooftop of the building, an empty concrete space dotted with a few loudly buzzing mechanical units and large pipes.

She continued to walk without hesitation towards the edge of the roof, knowing that Diaboli would follow her. She stopped just a foot short of the edge, a single step away from thin air. And there she looked over the city of Vale as the sun beat down on her in her perfectly fitted black suit.

It was a grey city. A large city, a rich city, one that could easily swallow up an unsuspecting newcomer within its cement bowels, and one she knew outside and in. Almost her entire life she'd spent inside Vale: grown up here, trained here, worked here, built the Nine Dragons here. It was likely that one day she would die here. But never once had she considered the city hers. Even as the reach of the Dragons' network snaked ever more meticulously beneath the surface, Zan knew that there were corners and districts she would never look into, let alone exert control over.

"And what goodwill do you speak of, Decade?" she said coolly, back still turned to him. "So you have avoided another war with the Dragons. Did you think that was all your doing? You have no idea how much we've retreated into the shadows in the last year, how many violent allies we have cut out, or how many faction heads I have pulled under the banner of the Nine Dragons, so that we could solve our disputes with words and not bullets. All for the sake of peace. And who was at the forefront of that movement? Me."

Zanipher turned around, hands clasped behind her back as she considered Diaboli.

"But you want more, is that right? You would ask that the Daybreak Syndicate retreat entirely from Mistral, ignoring the fact that it has been an establishment within the city for longer than your lifetime. You would ask that the tendrils of the Nine Dragons wither away from your home kingdom entirely, ignoring that meeting this type of demand is beyond the authority of the Heads' relationship with their factions. You want us to stop competing with you entirely, when we are only one of the only innumerable active criminal groups jostling for a business venture in Anima's crown jewel, and hardly the most dangerous. I never promised you Mistral, Decade, just as I never claimed that Vale was mine."

Zanipher paused, taking a slow, deep breath.

"Tell me, please... if you think I'm wrong."