theairlock | Week 5

Entry tags:

!round 2,
!week 5

Week 5

[As with the weeks before, life in the Fantasy Sweet returns to something resembling normalcy with shocking efficiency. The second floor rest area and ~~Adventure Zone~~ Death Orb Room are spotless again, the demon glitter has been vacuumed, the deflated orbs have been replaced. It's like none of it ever happened, like three more friends aren't dead and stored away in the guest house morgue.

There's a new floor to explore, their "reward" for a job well done.]

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday

[ooc: Don't forget to to turn in your activity for week 4, submit your memory regains and put in your threads for the Benefactors!]

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Why?

[The immediate answer is obvious: because they did this to me. 'This' being...basically damnation, he supposes. A walking, living damnation. But doesn't that get exhausting after a couple thousand years? Doesn't that get tiring and boring? Can't he do literally anything else with the rest of his life--possibly the rest of eternity?]

Is that you talking, or the thing inside you?

Give me one reason not to. [Whichever it was, Ardyn seemed convinced that vengeance was entirely justified; his right hand still wearing the Ring of the Lucii curled into a fist out of pure frustration.]

It doesn't matter who or what I am. That's exactly what the entire planet deserves.

Because it won't make any difference.

These people don't remember you. They don't know your story. This kid that seems so chosen, does he deserve it? Did the Oracle deserve it, just for existing in a world that once, way back when, turned on you?

And when you're done burning the world to the ground, you're still going to be angry and miserable and hurt. Kind of a thing daemons do, in just about any story, too--feed on pain and negativity and everything awful in the world.

You deserve better than that.

...Noctis is the only one that can kill me, Church. If he is the Chosen King, then only he can banish the darkness. I'm more than just a carrier, Church. I am the Starscourge, body and soul.

If I do this and win, then the Astrals lose the light of their precious Crystal along with the planet. And if I lose...then everything that I am will still be erased after two millennia.

What do I have to lose?

[There's a part of him that vaguely understands, because his immediate thought is then what the fuck's the point?

Which is...the point.

Either he's dead and it won't matter anyway, or he gets revenge on the gods who literally won't be able to fuck over anyone else with the Crystal. What does he have to lose?]

Yourself.

Ardyn. There's enough of Lucis Caelum in there that it's bullshit to say you're just the Starscourge and nothing more. You are not just Izunia. Your feelings are there. They're just muted. You aren't gone.

And if you do this, there really won't be anything of you left.

And what if this is what I--who and whatever I am--actually wants, Church?

[He asked that a little more calmly, corruption gradually fading out of his eyes.]

You really think I want to live like this for a few thousand more years? I don't even want to remember how long it's already been. If there is any part of me still the savior you knew, do you really want him trapped in darkness for eternity?

If this is the only path I can take that might have an end, what reason is there that I shouldn't try and take the Crystal down with me?

[It's a terrible realization that he's tried not to bring up. And who even knows if there's anything they could do about it.

He is the king's shield. And he's terrified that the best way to save Ardyn is to let it end. If it's the only way to let him rest. He wouldn't be here if he couldn't die, but what happens when he leaves this place? Plague the fucking galaxy? Go back home and...continue to deteriorate?]

You could stay. Instead of going back. If there's any way to keep you from going back--go to someone else's world, or stay here, I don't--

[This is not the god damn conversation about death he needed this morning. He reaches out again, thinking that maybe, maybe he won't be pushed away now, hands gentle on his arms. He hopes they aren't shaking. He fears they might be.]

This isn't a good time. To think about this. We need to let it settle, sort it through. High emotions--even for you.

...I can't promise you that I won't do anything cataclysmic if I end up back on Eos. I can't even tell you with certainty that I haven't done so and simply forgot.

[He didn't move to push Church away this time, the Starscourge having vanished from his face--whoever he was right now, it wasn't the Accursed.]

But I am about to do something very, very stupid that I have no reason to think will not backfire on me given what I now know.

...I'm going to trust you. Because looking at you right now, even I find it hard to believe you're going to turn on me.

I lost someone I cared about more than I could ever hope to possibly attempt to fucking explain. I don't--I don't--I just can't find the words, I'm not--not good with words.

I almost lost Junpei. We almost lost Junpei. He reminds me of--of my team. Of one of my best friends.

I lost my whole unit, once. Good kids. Dumb, stupid, good kids.

We've lost seven people here. We lost Mikaela, Mai, Finn, Lee, Mary, Takumi, and Roland.

[He brings himself closer and leans to rest his forehead against Ardyn's. This is tiring, exhausting, and he cannot even fathom even a fraction how exhausted his fallen king might be.] I am not. going. to lose you, too. I am going to do everything in my power to help you, because guess what? You trusted me to that duty. Maybe you didn't mean--maybe you didn't mean it to go this far, and maybe I didn't mean to take it seriously, but here we the fuck are. My best might not be good enough. But I'm going to give it.

Because once upon a time you were a tremendously good man, and once upon a time I wanted to be one.

So whatever happens...whatever you do, I'm not turning on you. I'm not turning away. You're stuck with me. Which might just be a fate worse than living forever. [Ardyn can appreciate gallows humor, right, even ill-timed?]

...And as someone who has to deal with a lot of very stupid decisions being made around him constantly, I think I can handle whatever it is you're about to do. So what are you about to do?

At least you didn't lose an entire planet's faith in you. I think your track record is better than mine in that respect.

[Ardyn just gave up on any pretense of pushing Church away, sighing.]

...I was joking at first when I called you and Junpei my Kingsglaive. I never expected you to take it seriously--or to do the same myself. Certainly not to this extent. So no matter what I do from here, whether I end an entire world or not--until we get out of here, I'm trusting you to do what Vandeae didn't. What all of Lucis didn't.

I am letting myself believe you'll hold to that promise we made when I was someone else entirely, and stay at my side to the end of this.

[The new murder this week is Ardyn getting friendshipped to death with physical affection.]

Lotta planets out there, Ardy. I'm sure I would've been a colossal and total fuckup on one of them somewhere. But I guess that'd require colossal and total faith in me first.

I'll let you in on a secret. I'm kind of an ass. But I'm an ass that doesn't go back on his promises. I...appreciate it, though.. The vote of confidence.

You say that like I'm some kind of saint in comparison. If ever I was, I think that's long behind me.

[He managed a smirk at that, at least approaching his usual level of sarcasm.]

As far as poor decisions made regarding the company we might keep, I think we're all excelling. You and Junpei in particular.

Sounds to me like you were well on your way to sainthood as it was. Dunno how canonization works in your world though.

[He moves just enough to sit himself beside Ardyn along the wall.]

You're still an honorary Blue, but man, I kind of hope you never meet the others. Talk about bad company. [He says with fondness.] So I'm used to it.

Ascension is complicated. Don't worry about it.

[He laughed, hollow despite his best attempts at sounding like anything else.]

Shame I don't fit the color theme. And if they're as much of a disaster as we are, your universe might be in trouble.

Wellllll, far as I know, none of us are immortal beings with danger plagues in us hell-bent on destroying a world that spurned us.

But Caboose tried to load his gun with crayons instead of bullets so he could decorate the walls faster, and Tucker's got a big rock he's graffiti'd he thinks is private enough for him to jerk off behind instead of doing it in his room like a normal person. And Flowers seemed to think he was supposed to be our dad, like, in a creepy way that kinda went over the line just a little between found family camaraderie and kinkshaming. Oh, and Grif's sister is a Blue, I guess. Biggest slut I've ever seen. Holy shit. Tex was kind of a Blue, too, and that's a bag and a half of disaster right there.

Oh, and the first time I died, it was my own team that did it. Can't forget that.

So no, not nearly as big a disaster. But still a disaster.

...Stop that, you're making us sound competent in comparison.

And I haven't even told you about the Reds.

Don't tell me it gets worse than that.

I'm pretty sure Sarge has been in the army as long as he's been alive, which could be any time between the last fifty years and the American Revolution. [A beat.] That's about 800 years ago. Joke in poor taste! I know. He uh. Has a habit of threatening his team, and his plans tend to be insanely convoluted.

Simmons is an ass-kissing sycophant of the highest of orders. He's a smart dude and a smartass, and yet he just lets Sarge do his thing. I think there's daddy issues there. Grif's lazy. ...That's it, really; he wants to sleep all day, and when he's not sleeping, he's eating, and effort is the last thing you'll ever get him to exert.

Donut is the innuendo-flinging double-entendre-saying happy-go-lucky guy in pink armor he insists is "lightish red". I like him, actually. I just can't...ever tell if he's saying shit on purpose or actually that clueless. He had a fucking spaceship drop on him, now that I think about it. And got a grenade to the face thanks to Tex. I...have no idea how he's still alive at this point. And Lopez is their worker mechanic robot that they accidentally shorted so it only speaks Spanish.

Nobody in the whole fucking canyon speaks Spanish.

...

I know that I said the efforts of even the smallest battalion in the middle of nowhere make a difference, but...how exactly do any of you function?

Very poorly and with a lot of yelling.

That at least explains why you're so unnecessarily loud.

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Week 5

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