week 6

[airlockedmods]

[Even with three deaths two weeks in a row, life in the Fantasy Sweet returns to some semblance of normalcy come Sunday morning. The messes are cleaned up, the bodies are safe in the morgue (or in Kip's case, still in a liquor bottle in the garden) and with this new week comes a fresh crop of returning memories.

There is no new floor this week.

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday



[ooc: Don't forget to to turn in your activity for week 5, submit your memory regains and put in your threads for the Benefactors!]

Comments

[scourgingstars]

['Tonight, the dreams of the blood royal come to an end.']

[It was always going to come to that. Everything from two thousand years hence had led to that moment, in a broken Citadel beneath a blackened sky and blocked out sun. Ardyn himself atop the throne, glaring down at the Chosen King and his three glaives. Ultimately, it was a duel in and above the streets--two kings in the dead city both had once called home. Twin Armigers clashed, red and blue the only color in a darkened Insomnia ravaged by daemons.]

[And in the end-]

['What will you do? Banish the daemons and bring peace? Erase me from history once more?']

[Hatred still burned, but now it was the smoldering cinders left behind in the wake of a wildfire that had been doused in exhaustion. Ardyn was just...tired. Everything had unfolded exactly as he'd hoped, exactly as he'd needed it to--the rest was now a foregone conclusion.]

['This time-']

[Those clear blue eyes focused on Ardyn, calling back to something long forgotten when a long past ancestor had glared coldly at Ardyn though he was some kind of monster.]

['-you can rest in peace. Close your eyes... forevermore.']

[Ardyn couldn't quite tell if he was smiling; he did that quite often. People never questioned a lighthearted demeanor, and never guessed that it was a thin veil to cover the anger that had now ravaged the entire planet. But maybe...if he was smiling now, then just this once it may have even been sincere.]

['I will await you...in the beyond.']

[Everything from here was left to Noctis; to erase the scourge and bring back the dawn. The 'sky of burning light' had flared brighter than ever one final time and finally, finally went out.]

[Or so he briefly thought, before his eyes opened in a darkened room 7. It took Ardyn a minute to actually realize where he was and how he'd gotten there, why he wasn't covered in blackened blood and why the Ring of the Lucii was on his hand rather than Noctis'.]

[It was the sudden invasion of personal space that startled him back to the present--out of Insomnia in the rain to a simple room with someone insistently shoving his way against Ardyn's shoulder. How long were you in the dark carried an odd sense of deja vu that he ignored, trying to focus on the question itself.]

['Oh, Noct...how I have waited for this. Longer than-']

...Longer than you could ever know.

[motherfucking_ghost]

[He nods a little, the motion almost lost in the dark. He'd go mad. He'd go completely and utterly insane. It's something he's certain of, now, if somehow he hadn't been before. How long had it taken for Ardyn to feel safe enough in the world to even be around people again, even if people he hated, people who didn't know who or what he was? Too long.]

I don't know how you did it. Sure, you're crazy, but you're a coherent crazy. Pretty impressive. In a horrifying way.

[scourgingstars]

[Ardyn didn't answer with the hollow or derisive laugh he might usually have met something like that with. For a long moment, he didn't answer at all.]

[He'd been insane for a very, very long time, hadn't he? Logically, he knew that. And he also knew he hadn't cared. What drove a healer to become a destroyer was merely a part of him now, and he embraced the complete madness because it felt right. The gods, the Lucii, the whole planet deserved what was coming to them as far as Ardyn Izunia was concerned. What reason did he have to question his own insanity if the end result was justified?]

[Anger was always easier.]

...I don't think that I know either.

[motherfucking_ghost]

[Ardyn must've remembered something, too, but--that's for him to say, in his own time. No pressing each other this go round. Just pressing against each other, or at least Church pressing to him for the sake of a living body and a voice not his own. Concerned, of course he's concerned, but it's not some raging monster in bed, so he feels safe.]

...Hey, so, no running off this time, cuz, spoiler alert, I won't let you. Or I'll follow you around if you do.

[scourgingstars]

I've not left yet, have I?

[It seemed like far too much effort to try. Ardyn was far calmer this time, the blazing vengeful anger of the week before having given way to that deep exhaustion.]

[motherfucking_ghost]

I...'m just saying. If you felt like it. I need you to stay until morning. [Not want. He needs it like breathing right now. Even if he gets shooed back to his own bed, it'd be enough to know there's someone else here with him. Worse too with remembering how hurt, how disappointed he'd been that time Ardyn had left, after saying he wouldn't. What a shitshow that had been. What a shitshow the past several memories. What a shit week. Fuck.]

[scourgingstars]

[Until morning.]

[Now that was funny. 'Morning', like there was anything resembling dawn in this place. Like Ardyn hadn't spent ten years under a blackened sky, and two thousand more before it in a darkness entirely his own.]

[Did it even matter that he wasn't alone this time? Did any of it matter when he felt the edges of despair as Ardyn slowly began to realize the possibility he'd never be able to die now unless he did it here of all places?]

[Why couldn't the last shreds of something human just drown already so he could be done with it? So he could just push off the person on his shoulder and walk out, ignoring this ridiculous group entirely and not wasting energy on even pretending to care whether they lived or died?]

...I'm not leaving.

[Worthless. That shadow of a memory just refused to give up, even now.]

[motherfucking_ghost]

[Whatever tension Church might have built up dissipates in an instant. He can sleep soundly the rest of the night knowing he won't be alone. That this wasn't a dream. Please, god, he doesn't want to wake up to an empty base with nothing but his own rapid thoughts running him in wild circles.]

Humans are social creatures. Some are more solitary than others, but they're not made to be alone.

[scourgingstars]

Then you'd be better served taking that up with another human, would you not?

[There was no bitterness there, contrary to how Ardyn had sounded in more recent days; it was just an observation at this point, a calm admission of I'm not human in not so many words.]

[motherfucking_ghost]

Yeah, cuz I'm gonna go knocking on doors at 3 in the morning or whatever just so I can sleep on someone when you'll do just fine. [He could with Queenie, Kip's door's unlocked after all. It makes him afraid, if she's going to keep staying there. How easy a target she'd be. Like Jack said.] I'm just explaining to the not-human side of you.

Besides, I'm not exactly the most human, either, huh? I used to be human, and this body might be human, but I'm dead, remember? A ghost. Or an AI if you believe my profile. Used to living in machines. Is the ghost of a human still human?

[scourgingstars]

Sounds like something you might do, actually.

[Ardyn just shrugged, sounding indifferent.]

More human than I am, I should think.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Maybe a different week. I'm an ass, but...

[He trails off, thinking maybe he should leave it there, just take this in and sleep and have Ardyn just deal with it, but there's just so much...nothing in his voice. Not derision or barely-disguised anger, just...]

I'm not gonna ask the stupid question. I know better.

[scourgingstars]

...Do you want the answer, regardless of whether or not you asked the question itself?

[motherfucking_ghost]

I mean, I was kind of implying it. But that's...up to you. If you want to answer it.

[scourgingstars]

It's...ended. All of it. I suspect by now Noctis has salvaged whatever was left to save, but I've no idea what might be left.

[motherfucking_ghost]

...But not you. Whatever's left--you're not part of it.

[scourgingstars]

You guessed correctly--I should be dead right now. Eradicated alongside the scourge itself.

...But I'm still here. Whatever I am right now is still alive, whether that should be through chance or the divine punishment of the Astrals refusing to let this end.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Jesus, I didn't really mean what I said yesterday.

I mean--I did, though, I did mean that we'll find a way to cure you if we can, and that I'd rather you come to my world if we make it out, those I absolutely meant, just, when I mentioned what if you're already--

...Huh.

[scourgingstars]

[There wasn't a cure for this. Even if they recreated what PAL had done and removed the corruption from his body, what would be left? A gentle and kindhearted healer would be standing in Ardyn Izunia's place, and he would lapse even further into madness crushed beneath the reality of what he'd done in the name of vengeance.]

[But he didn't point that out; just sighed and dropped an arm around Church's shoulders. Stupid, optimistic fool. Couldn't even see the obvious conclusion when it was right in front of him, instead focused on the memory of a two thousand years dead savior pleading for help against the monster he became.]

[motherfucking_ghost]

[He might make eternal fun of Ardyn's choice of 'style', but damn if his expensive and eccentric taste doesn't feel good. Cozy.

Maybe it's a childish hope, a desperate need to cling to those he has left. He acknowledges Ardyn's need, even accepts it, if so very grudgingly. Maybe, if they can even cure it, fix it, then the man that will be left will really and truly go insane. Thousands of years in darkness. People slaughtered. Alone in just about every sense of the word. And if that's the case? If that's the case then they'll do what they must. Hell, he'll even pull the metaphorical trigger if he has to, just to stop the fucking suffering.

But if there's a chance he can come back, safe and sound of mind, then...then they have to try, right? They ought to. Church never could learn to let go that easily.]

Just solidifies that we'll have some decisions to make at the end of this. That--you'll have some. When we get there.

I know--I know you've already made them but maybe something will happen and circumstances will change and you'll have to actually think about it. I'm just saying.

[scourgingstars]

...Far more impossible things have happened.

[He didn't even have the energy to argue, leaning his head back against the wall and just leaving it at that. It seemed terribly hopeless, to the point of it all just being a cosmic joke at his expense.]