Disorganized Auriel Notes
Dallas: Booted from Shanxi in 1877, huh. So you weren't a cowboy for very long.
Auriel: They did not last very long to begin with.
Dallas: What did ranchers think of you.
Auriel: Ranchers considered me a vagrant. Vaqueros considered me a mirage.
Dallas: Did you ever fuck with the people who thought you were a hallucination.
Dallas: How did you obtain a new palomino every two or three decades if the gene was only bred for in the 1930's.
[Editor's note: a palomino was found in a 2,000 year old Chinese tomb. Dallas is the ignorant party here.]
Auriel: They are born of jade eggs bestowed by my father.
Dallas: Do you carry them with you, or are they, say, buried somewhere in New Mexico for when the next one knocks the bucket.
He did not respond, but the answer is yes, he has half a dozen hidden somewhere in the southern United States, and has to perform a pilgrimage every 20-30 years as his horses age out, lol. His last was named Temperance of the Cloud, but his first in the Americas was Sweet Perseverance, and she's the one he misses most.
No dialogue, just Auriel remembering one of his lovers telling him they couldn't be together because he needed someone who could die with him. Auriel offers to renounce his immortality by piercing his heart with the celestial arrow gifted from his father when Qinghui grows old in order for them to die as one, something Auriel had steadily been considering as the pain of losing loved ones consumed him.
And Qinghui bursts into flames, reduced to ash in a single scream for help. Sol Invictus descends as holy fire and reminds Auriel that to die for a human is ignoble. This is his last warning.
Auriel takes this well, and as soon as Invictus disappears, proceeds to lose his mind entirely and blaze Qinghui's district of Shanxi into a drought that will eventually claim the lives of millions. Four years in, Invictus realizes what his son is doing and renounces him as both a god and a son, dialing back the heat so the region can recover in a few years. Auriel is cast across the globe to what's now Nevada, and the remainder of his celestial powers are now used to keep him alive. Even the tip of his heavenly arrow will no longer kill him- only his father's will can.
All things considerin', this happened much more recently than I expected; he basically went crazy and became a vaquero in the same five years, and that was in the 1870's. Took up motorcycling in the 1990's to extend his stock of jade... horse eggs.., since his father only gave him a finite number. He mostly traverses Death Valley as of the last hundred or so years, a pale specter that looms at high noon without a drop of sweat on his person. A livin' ghost tryin' to remember why it matters to be alive, kept movin' by flame and wrath.
