Lost of Faith (open)

Recently, Chime had begun his training to become Kami, led by the shinjin Kanrin and his assistant Polaire. In addition to simply learning how to fight, Polaire insisted he needed to 'toughen up.' To that end, he had been taken to this massive snowy mountain, and instructed not to return until he had climbed to the top. Chime spent a while just marveling at the snow, it was something he'd never seen before. But it didn't take long for the freezing temperature to get to him, and soon he had materialized himself a warm hat, scarf, and mittens. He had never been this cold in his life! Things lived up here? That seemed like it should be impossible, but he knew it had to be true, he could sense the ambient energy of the plants and animals all around him. The diversity of the Earth continued to amaze him, every day.

As he neared the peak of the mountain, something caught his attention. An energy, much stronger than all the other life on the mountain. Chime would have been afraid of some sort of terrible snow-beast dwelling there, except the signature was familiar. It was much stronger than when he had last encountered it.

Sure enough, around the next ridge sat his fellow Namekian, Mollusc, covered in snow. He was shouting something, but Chime couldn't make out what it was, over the wind. Mollusc was barely visible under all the snow, Chime just recognized him by his energy, and the pair of green antennae poking out of the fluffy white. What was he even doing up here? Was he training, too? Namekians weren't built for cold like this, after all, so maybe he'd had the same idea as Polaire had, and was doing some sort of endurance exercises. But from the way he was yelling to the sky, something seemed very wrong, and so Chime hurried over to his side.

"Mollusc?" Chime called over the wind, "That's you under there, right? What're you doing up here? Are you okay?"

Chime frowned as he got closer, and peered up into Mollusc's face. It was a bit hard to read him with the blowing snow all around them, but the taller Namekian looked troubled. He was happy the snow was off him, at least, but Chime had to imagine he was still cold. Chime himself was cold, and he was bundled up in a hat and scarf. What in the world was Mollusc doing up here? But the warrior avoided his question, instead turning the conversation on Chime himself. The redirection wasn't subtle at all, and made him even more suspicious, but he could tell Mollusc wasn't keen on talking about whatever was bothering him. So instead of press him, he answered his question,

"I'm alright, just chilly. I came here to train!" Chime stood up at tall as he could, and tried to look dignified, "I'm trying to become Kami, and to do that, I need to get stronger. This shinjin is training me, along with his, er...friend." he dropped the important, put-together look he was going for to rub the back of his neck, thinking back to Polaire and his intense training.

"You look like you've been up here a while," he continued, trying to gently prompt Mollusc to tell him why, "I bet you're freezing. Here," and he clapped both his hands together. They began to glow with a white light, which grew as he brought his hands farther and farther apart. Once his hands were as far as he could reach, the light between them solidified with a light poof, into a long red scarf. He offered it up to Mollusc.

Chime stood beside Mollusc and gazed out at the snowy clouds as he listened to the other Namekian's troubles. The 'chosen of Porunga' was something he'd heard Mollusc talk about before, but it wasn't any role Chime had ever heard of, even in legend. The closest thing he could think of was the Guru, but that was clearly not what he meant. But Chime had never heard of Porunga 'choosing' anyone. He was a great dragon, bound to the dragon balls. He was summoned when people willed it, and granted the wishes his summoners asked of him. Porunga was the one that followed what people said, not the other way around. Still, Chime would have to put all that delicately. Mollusc was steadfast in his devotion to this cause of his, and the fact it wasn't working out was clearly upsetting to him. He didn't want to hurt his friend more by telling him he might be wrong.

"Well...if you're looking to talk to Porunga, what are you doing up here?" he asked, "If you want to talk to a great dragon, you need to summon him with the dragon balls. And I don't think any Namekian dragon balls are up on this mountain." He looked aside to Mollusc, and gave him a smile before continuing, "But Mollusc...how did you become chosen, anyway? Was there a sign of some kind? And what does being chosen mean, what were you chosen to do?"

"Protect the Saiyans...?" Chime echoed, and looked confused. Why would Porunga care about the Saiyans? If the great dragon was going to command someone, surely he would tell them to protect his own people, the Namekians? Something wasn't adding up here. Mollusc went on to describe how he'd heard a voice, and the message he'd been given about the Saiyans. Chime bit at the inside of his cheek as he thought. That was as vague a message as he'd ever heard, and to assume it meant 'protect' was a pretty big leap. That missing word could have been anything, it could have been telling Mollusc to 'kiss Saiyans', or anything else. Mollusc looked happier after telling Chime that story, though, and he felt terrible telling the other Namekian his mission from Porunga was probably not from a dragon at all. He didn't want him to be disappointed.

It wouldn't do much good to tell Mollusc his vision had been false if he didn't have any alternate explanation, though, so Chime decided right then that he had to get to the bottom of this. He took a moment to conjure himself a simple wooden stool, planted its four legs in the snow so it wouldn't fall, and stood up next to Mollusc, now at an even height with him. Chime's hands began to glow with gentle blue, healing light, and reached up to examine the other Namekian's head for injury, if he'd allow, "May I? I just...I wanna check something."

He continued asking questions, partially because he wanted answers, and partially to just distract Mollusc from asking his own about what Chime was doing, "You got your message on Vegeta? Why were you over there in the first place?"

"Huh...so you're more from Vegeta than you are from Namek, pretty much?" Chime puzzled aloud as he looked over Mollusc's head. He hadn't heard of Namek sending any soldiers to Vegeta, or anywhere for that matter, they'd been keeping to themselves until very recently. But, it was possible it had been before Chime's time, Mollusc seemed a bit older than him. And besides, Chime wasn't privy to all the goings-on of the Warrior caste, they may have been up to many things he didn't know about. But it still didn't seem quite right.

Mollusc's head seemed uninjured at least, so that was good news. Chime had been concerned the other Namekian had hit his head at some point, and gotten his memory mixed up, or maybe been made to hear voices. But he seemed physically healthy. Whatever Mollusc had heard, Porunga or otherwise, it looked like he actually did hear it. Chime leaned back a bit to regard him for a moment, then set his hands on Mollusc's shoulders.

"Here's what I think. I think you need to stop worrying about Porunga. If you feel like you should protect the Saiyans, then go protect the Saiyans. If you feel like you want to stay here on Earth and do something else, then do that. But it sounds like you're too hung up on what other people are telling you to do." He gave Mollusc's shoulders a pat, and smiled, "You need to figure out what you want to do, just as Mollusc, not a champion of anything."

When Mollusc didn't reply for a moment, and seemed to be lost in thought, Chime gave him another pat on the shoulder, then hopped off his conjured stool, back into the snow. He laid his hands on the stool to begin the process of dematerialization it, but that took him a minute, and as he worked, he continued speaking, "When I left home, I didn't have any idea what I was doing, you know. I felt restless, and I wanted to see the universe. Earth, especially. I thought it would help me become stronger, wiser. But I was pretty aimless, I didn't have an actual plan. You saw me, I was a mess!" He laughed a little, remembering how much of a tizzy he'd been in when he'd first landed on Mount Paozu.

The wooden stool vanished into sparkling dust, and Chime clapped his hands together, "And then I met you! And you told me Earth has no dragon balls. It felt like it was fate, y'know? Like that was what was calling me to Earth, without me knowing it. So I dedicated myself to that, creating the dragon balls, or helping to however I could. And now look at me!" He spread his arms out with a big smile on his face, "I'm up here training to become Guardian of Earth! I guess you're kinda like my Porunga, huh? You gave me my mission."

He turned out to face the snowy landscape again, and tugged his scarf tighter around his chin, "...My point's gotten away from me. I just meant to say that, I believe in fate, but I also believe we can choose our own path. I was destined to come here, to meet you, to get that information, but what I did with it after that, that was all on me. Does that make sense?"

Chime smiled up at Mollusc. He was genuinely glad he'd been able to get through to the other Namekian a bit, though he couldn't tell him exactly what to do next. That was for Mollusc to decide. A particularly strong wind came by, and he shivered, and pulled his knit hat further down over his ears. He looked up towards the mountain top, but couldn't see it, for all the thick white fog and clouds that surrounded them this high up. That was no good, he couldn't see how much farther he had to go.

"You don't owe me or anything, y'know," Chime told him, "But if you really want to help...I'm supposed to be climbing to the top of this mountain. To toughen me up, y'know? I'm not sure how far we are, but I think we're close. I've been literally climbing since the wind got this bad, I'm kinda afraid to fly in this."

He gave Mollusc another smile, and started to trudge his way through the snow, further up the mountain, "It's fine if you wanna stay here, though. I bet you've still got a lot to think about, right?"