airlockedmods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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theairlock2017-06-11 02:14 pm
airlockedmods) wrote in theairlock2017-06-11 02:14 pm
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!]
There's a new floor to explore, their "reward" for a job well done.]
[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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[Hm. After a second, he wonders if that sounded bad. He is not, after all, good with words.
...But he won't clarify, because...fine. This place just feels like quiet. His head isn't quiet by any means, but it's almost calming. Maybe they should talk, though. About the meeting.
...Or he'll just move down the line. Next body, next friend or potential friend or at least ally lost.]
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Look, he's not about to bitch at aaaaaanyone for the way they mourn or do anything to reacting about death, but the just standing there is just...
What if he just interrupts like an asshole by saying anything? Shit, what does he even say? He should just go. He should leave. Ardyn's made his choices, and Church is sticking by his side, and if he has to lose Queenie for it, then.........then that sucks and he doesn't need another loss.
He turns away from the pods, looks to the door like he'll leave, looks to Ardyn, looks at the floor. Bounces on the balls of his feet for a moment.]
Y'know, if it wasn't for your history, I'd ask if you prayed to any gods. [Never, ever expect Church to say smart things.] You almost look like you're waiting for something to happen.
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I'm not waiting for anything. Just...thinking.
[...]
You didn't have to defend me, Shield or otherwise.
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Didn't have to, but I did. Didn't embarrass you or anything, did I? [He asks the lord of 10% at best emotions, and he's not sure embarrassment is even one of them.]
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[That wasn't an argument, from the way it sounded; more like Ardyn was trying to figure out why everyone was ignoring a plain fact. The sky was blue, water was wet, and Ardyn Izunia was a horrible thing that masqueraded as a person.]
So many of you are glossing over what I want to do, and I can't truly understand why. One person couldn't possibly have meant more to all of you than the lives of a whole planet.
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Nobody knows, okay? Not even you, not right now. If you've actually managed to fuck your whole planet over and kill every last person. Maybe you have. And maybe you'll remember that, and maybe you're a crazy miserable fuck who's no longer in any way, shape, or form a person.
Right now you're just a murderer with a raw deal, a lot of time to lose yourself and your sanity, and a suicidal plan that might fuck everyone up, might just fuck the crystal and gods up, or might only fuck you up and...actually save the world, kind of, actually, not that that's...the real intent here.
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[Ardyn unfolded his arms; the Ring of the Lucii was still on his hand even now as he brushed his hair out of his eyes.]
...It was barely a few days ago, and yet that whole incident seems more like a very distant dream. I can remember every detail from worrying Junpei was infected, to enjoying myself at that absurd little gathering, to the miserable headache I had the next morning--but there's none of that left now. No matter how I concentrate, no matter how I try to reach for whatever may yet be left...I can't find it. There's just anger, frustration, and the desire to direct it at everything.
And I don't know how much of that is a man who was pushed past his breaking point and how much is the plague I've carried for far too long. I don't- [For just a moment, Ardyn broke off as though he wasn't sure where that sentence was meant to go, calm and collected tone sounding briefly unsteady.]
I want vengeance, Church, and I feel that with an all-encompassing desire I've never felt before. But after all of this, whatever I am placed so close to whatever I was...I don't...know what to do.
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What's one more disappointment in his life anyway?
But then Ardyn falters, and it's the most...human thing he's ever heard the fallen king do or say since the trial.
There's still a lot missing. Thousands of years to develop the madness, to enact plans, to stew in the darkness of a thousand, a million angry voices, Omega stacked on Omega whispering about death and destruction, where even one nearly drew Tex off the edge. Maybe Ardyn will remember that, the massive yawning gap that truly exists between what he is and what he was, and that will just be that.
But for now?
He is not afraid on his approach, because Ardyn has long since stopped scaring him at least when it comes to his own safety. Catches the ringed hand with his own. He doesn't have an immediate answer, doesn't know what to tell Ardyn to do, but fuck, he was never able to tell Tex what to do anyway, so all he can do is...maybe help guide his way. He brings the hand to eye-level, powerless crystal glinting between them.]
Tell me what this means to you right now.
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[He'd been almost hopeful when Junpei handed it back to him--with that magic he'd have been able to overthrow PAL with hardly an effort--and genuinely upset when it didn't answer it. The ring had always answered him, always reacted and responded when he needed it.]
[Until one day, it hadn't.]
[It was the symbol of all that he hated. The Crystal, Bahamut, the entire line of Lucis distilled into a simple black ring that should have held untold power. So why, Ardyn had been asking himself, couldn't he bring himself to just take it off and throw it into the middle of the garden as hard as he could? It wouldn't respond to a king it deemed unworthy; more likely it would burn his entire arm off if its power ever returned.]
...It's everything that should have been mine. All that I was and all that I wanted to be. I hate the Crystal, as well as the gods which granted it to us. The Ring of the Lucii's power will never answer my call again, even if this were more than a mere replica.
It rejects those deemed unworthy, so wearing it now...was hardly more than wishful thinking for me.
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To remind yourself that you had hope?
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[But he had no idea how to finish that sentence.]
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...I think it could be.
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Ardyn is no king, and Church is no knight. He might, by the grace only of being just attached enough to have given meaning to the word, be the King's Shield, but he's no mere loyal subject of a shadow of a man who once was. He insists that their dynamic is that of equals in a real fucked up situation. That's still true.
But the ring of the line of Lucis, the shard of crystal that had made Ardyn Chosen--to be exalted or damned or both--it has meaning. It has meaning deep enough that he doesn't care to take it off, and it's a connection, then, to Lucis Caelum. If Izunia was really all that was left, why not get rid of it? Why not crush it beneath a boot with a sneer and a scoff and be done with it?
No matter the decisions any version of Ardyn has made, no matter what anyone else thinks, he's determined to reach out and keep Lucis Caelum in the light, even if there's just a sliver of him left. For whatever time they have left. He has to.
Church lowers the hand and, in a mimic of something he's sure he'd seen in tv or movies or books a few dozen times, bows over it, pressing his lips to the ring.
In deference to the king, the healer, the man who was.
He straightens then.] I'd say it's a pretty safe bet.
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[It made no sense. The whole world had cursed and feared him for what he became, down to the last people he ever expected. Accursed, Accursed, Accursed still echoed in the back of his mind, like a steady pulse fueling bitter rage towards everything he'd ever known.]
[...Almost everything.]
[His hand tightened imperceptibly on Church's, a gesture Ardyn himself may not have even been aware of.]
...You're a complete and utter fool. I hope at least that you're aware of that.
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[He's going to keep hold until Ardyn pulls away, because he hasn't yet, has perhaps even done just the opposite, and there is meaning, too, in this.]
I can't tell you what to do, except that for now you should keep doing this. Staying, with us, alive, and helping, until we're out of here. I don't have any answers, same as you, but maybe we can figure something out.
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...'Ardyn Lucis Caelum' said he would protect the rest of you as best he could. I simply find it more convenient to keep you all alive. The same end result, but don't make the mistake of believing I'm doing it out of altruism.
Whatever happens from there...I suppose it depends on what options may potentially present themselves.
[He pulled his hand away, realizing it was still there practically as an afterthought.]
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You could start making some contingency plans, but I think one thing we can predict about PAL and this game is how thoroughly unpredictable it all is. We don't know how this might end. Better to keep the options open, yeah.
Same as you made a vow, so did I, and so did Junpei. If we get out of here, we'll look for a way to help you. PAL might even have something. Hell, he's got the ability to take it all away, even if just to shunt it in another person; maybe he can do that on a more permanent level.
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[does this seem like the kind of lunatic who is also stupid, church]
...Do you really think that's possible? I suppose it did happen once, but with so much called into question over what is or isn't strictly real about us I'm not so certain this will be easily rid of. And simply putting it on someone else seems an undesirable outcome.
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Didn't say it'd be easy, and if this really is a matter of data manipulation, we don't have to put it in anyone. Whether it's a computer program or Junpei's morphogenic bullshit or something of the sort--they can move powers around. They can dampen powers. There's no reason not to think they can simply take them away.
...Which, I guess that's a contingency plan right there, huh.
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