Week 5

[airlockedmods]

[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!]

Comments

[scourgingstars]

You don't get it at all. I am everything you lack, Clarith--hatred and nothing else. That's all I truly feel anymore, no matter how the Ardyn you've known tried to pretend otherwise.

[desperateprayer]

I don't think that's true. I think... If you truly only hated, you wouldn't have told us. Some part of you wanted to push us away, probably to make it easier. Or to just get it over with, so you could spare yourself what pain there would be, I suppose. I don't know. But still... You still told us. You trusted us with something that could change our view of you.

[ She'll smile up at him. ]

...I told you. There's nothing you could do to make me hate you or top caring.

[scourgingstars]

I'm telling you because it would just be inconvenient for me if the rest of you learned as much because you'd seen what I truly look like. Because 'Ardyn Lucis Caelum' said that he would offer an explanation, and I don't care enough for a few more curses thrown my direction to hold any weight.

[desperateprayer]

...But we're not cursing you, Ardyn. Because you've proven yourself. You don't have to be Ardyn Lucis Caelum or even Ardyn Izunia here. You can just... Be Ardyn.

[ Nothing more, nothing less. ]

And whatever just Ardyn wants to be. It's your choice now. This isn't Eos, or even Evillious. And I don't think anything says we have to go back to our respective worlds if we survive. You could do whatever you wanted, wherever you wanted.

[scourgingstars]

...You really are being stupid about this. [He put his hands on Clarith's shoulders, carefully prying her off of him.]

I can't go anywhere the way that I am. Just because no one's been infected doesn't make me less of a walking plague.

[desperateprayer]

And? I didn't think any of this [ She gestures to the mansion floating in space around them ] was possible. Maybe there's someplace it won't matter. ...I know I'd welcome you to the monastery. Or you could even just... Live in town. Or somewhere else in the universe.

[scourgingstars]

Every bit the idealist even now. How sentimental.

You really think I want to live anywhere at all.

[desperateprayer]

...Ardyn. By saying that... Do you want to die?

[ YOU SOUND SUICIDAL, DUDE. And that has her worried. ]

[scourgingstars]

Did I say that? Oh, how careless of me.

[desperateprayer]

Ardyn...

[ YOU ARE BEING HUGGED TIGHTER. ]

...Please don't.

[scourgingstars]

Don't start that again. [He lightly pushed Clarith off, scowling faintly.]

You don't understand what this is like. I'm lucky I can't yet remember two thousand years of living this way, a mere month has been enough to nearly drive me utterly mad.

Death would practically be mercy at this point.

[desperateprayer]

...You didn't have us before. No one who knew and still care, who stayed by your side.

[ Sorry Ardyn, but "my ardyn now" is a thing. ]

...At least... Until we leave here... Hang on and trust us.

[scourgingstars]

And you think that matters, when I can barely feel even the most basic level of compassion for any of you?!

[desperateprayer]

But you still feel it, don't you? And that little bit... It scares you that you might hurt us, doesn't it?

[scourgingstars]

It might have, when I was someone else. Right now, I don't think it would bother me all that much in the larger picture of things.

[desperateprayer]

Then why are you pushing us away so hard?

[ LISTEN. LISTEN. She still cares, Ardyn, you are stuck with her. ]

[scourgingstars]

Why are you so intent upon staying with someone that might just kill you when it's convenient?

[desperateprayer]

Because you haven't yet. And I don't think you will, or you would have when we were alone in the dining room.

[ YOU'RE REALLY BAD AT THIS WHOLE "I DON'T CARE" THING ]

[scourgingstars]

You think I'm stupid enough to commit murder in a high-traffic area, in what passes for broad daylight by this clock.

I'm practically insulted.

[desperateprayer]

No. I think you're smart enough to know we all care about you enough we might let you get away with murder. And I think if you didn't care even a little bit, you'd have taken that risk. And if you truly do want to die so badly, I don't think you'd mind doing the "stupid" thing when it meant you could die.

[ Sorry, Ardyn. ]

[scourgingstars]

There's risk-taking, and then there's base stupidity--I'm a politician, I know the difference.

You can believe what you will, but spare me your sycophancy.

[desperateprayer]

You know that's not how I am, Ardyn.

[ She actually believes in you. ]

You don't have to believe me. But I'm speaking the truth of how I feel.