theairlock | Week 5

..But she's right.

[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.

...This really bothers you doesn't it?

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.

That's the problem--I don't think it bothers me at all. If every last one of you turned on me today, what would it matter? This group would fall in line with every single person I ever knew two thousand years ago, and in this case it would even make rational sense.

[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.

Edited 2017-06-13 05:01 (UTC)

[It's a sinking feeling that he works hard to hide. The idea, the knowing that it might all be gone. That maybe, truly, Ardyn was nothing more than the pale comparison of a man who felt nothing but hatred and a gnawing emptiness. Maybe getting it back had been the last straw, grinding Lucis Caelum down to nothing. Maybe the memory of his own history had pushed him past the edge. Maybe he was just destined to protect someone who truly didn't need or deserve it.

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.

What are you-...

[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.

And you wear it now to, what, serve as a reminder you don't need, like taking your brother's name? To hurt yourself because you can't look at it without remembering that ache?

To remind yourself that you had hope?

I don't...know. I suppose I should have taken it off by now, but...

[But he had no idea how to finish that sentence.]

But it still means something to you. Even if you don't know what. Even if you can't articulate it, which, hey, welcome to the club.

What about it? Even if it does, what can really be done with that? I'm no longer king in title or spirit, and a mere accessory can't fix that.

It doesn't have to--that's not the point. It means something to you when you keep insisting that it shouldn't. Don't you think maybe that alone is pretty important?

[Ardyn looked back to the ring--the only tangible evidence he'd ever been someone else--and just stared for a few seconds. Maybe it was less the ring itself and more what it had once meant. The remnant of a healer who would have used its power to save everyone here, and maybe not even be cursed for the attempt.]

...I think it could be.

[There's so much fantastical bullshit that he has no personal context for other than fiction. He's never met royalty, and except in the most traditional of aspects, royalty isn't really a thing on Earth anymore. He doesn't know what Ardyn should do, either, and none of this really...answers the question, but maybe it answers ones that Ardyn hadn't been willing to ask.

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.

... [Ardyn briefly seemed to be at a loss for words at Church's reaction, the remnants of something startled in yellow eyes. It really didn't make sense. Why continue to stay by the side of someone who wasn't even sure who he was? Someone who was almost completely convinced that destroying a world was the only path he wanted in a life that had lasted far too long?]

[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.

I'd say that's also a pretty safe bet.

[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.

I don't have anything to gain from turning on all of you. Except potentially getting killed, and I've little desire to let that thing win out over me. [Bitter and petty, your good ol' token evil teammate.]

...'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.]

[No hurt feelings. His feelings are already bruised and sore in a bunch of other different ways. He lets his drop, tilts his head with something that's almost a smirk on his face.]

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.

Oh, believe me. I have several contingency plans at the moment.

[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.

[he's just saying you can't plan for every possible outcome!!!]

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.

[Ardyn looked back at his right hand without answering at first, trying to consider that. Did it make any difference if this was gone or not? It didn't change any of what he'd already done--depending on what else he had yet to remember, that may have been worse than the death of just one Oracle. How would he even proceed as a human other than go mad from the knowledge of what he'd done and what he might yet have wanted to do?]

[If he went back to what he was, would anything he'd ever done have mattered at all?]

[There's no immediate reaction and...he's not really sure how to take that. Of course there's no jumping for joy, but he also doesn't shoot it down immediately. He hasn't forgotten about their conversation, about the Chosen Kid, about the end.

Maybe he's wrong. Maybe...of course he should've put the idea out there, but maybe it's too much to hope that Ardyn would want that.

What's another 60 years? Being human, getting to feel like he did in the few days, but all the time, and maybe dying of old age--maybe even with people that care about him?

But that is not Church's choice.]

If you...

...What you said before. You--

[He doesn't want to make any promises he can't keep.]

I want to give you options. And I want for you to be able to choose from those options. And if you...decide...

[Think about the words. Words are so hard. Words slip through his grasp when he needs them the most, a stuttery start and stop, and there's nothing he can really say to truly make this any easier, is there?]

I'm here for you. By your side.

...Don't lie to me.

[There was nothing confrontational to that; just a quiet insistence.]

Even you won't be at my side if I really do go through with this. You're not that kind of terrible.

That's not what I mean. I don't mean that, because yeah, I'm gonna think you're wrong, and I'm gonna argue, and no, I don't want you to fucking genocide a world.

...I'm just. I'm saying.

[He presses a hand to his head, looking away and making a frustrated noise. After a moment, he lets his fingers run through his hair.]

I'm not with you on ending your world, but if you want to end yourself, after all this, that part I back you on.

Is what I'm trying to say.

[Clarith really hadn't gotten the point at all; that had been frustrating. If he really had been like this for so long, it was little wonder to Ardyn why he was insane. Being able to die somehow sounded like a spectacular idea, all the better if he could make the Astrals pay for what they'd done in the process.]

[At least there was someone who understood the first half.]

[Ardyn raised his hand slightly...hesitated, like he wasn't sure what he was doing...and then settled it on Church's shoulder.]

That kind of sympathy might be your downfall one day.

[The significance is not lost on him, that Ardyn is willingly making contact. He acknowledges it with a look, that's all, so as to not chase the moment away.

In fact, he barks a little laugh that rings sharply in the room of the dead. (The utter fucking irony.)]

A backhanded compliment and a warning, that's impressive. Y'know, it's funny... There is absolutely nobody back home who would ever have said or even thought anything like that about me. Maybe this place is really changing me.

If it helps the matter, I have a strong suspicion no one's told me they're by my side in a very, very long time.

[...]

Perhaps we'll be fortunate and it may yet change both of us.

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motherfucking_ghost - 2017-06-14 02:06 (UTC) - Expand