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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[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.

Hey, there's always hope. Well. Everyone else's hope. What a fucking pair of disasters we make, huh?

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Week 5

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