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

[desperateprayer]

[ ...She'll smile at the bird, then, if she's allowed, reach over to give her scritches. ]

[scourgingstars]

[She seemed quite happy with that, stretching out her neck both to show off the neatly tied orange ribbon and give Clarith more to pay attention to. Ardyn, meanwhile, had fallen silent and ceased to pay much attention to either of them.]

[desperateprayer]

...How are you doing, Ardyn?

[ Of course she was going to ask. She might as well. ]

[scourgingstars]

The same as I ever am.

[Just as he had been for two thousand years. Just as well as he likely would until tne end of time itself, at this rate.]

[desperateprayer]

...

[ She's not sure what to say. She'd run out of words. Perhaps because she, herself, isn't okay. ]

...I'm sorry.

[scourgingstars]

You're wasting your sympathy.

[desperateprayer]

...Isn't that my choice?

[ You seem just as alone and mistreated by the world as she used to be. ]

[scourgingstars]

[ha ha BOY HOWDY]

It is. I just thought I may as well point out the futility regardless.

CW: Suicide

[desperateprayer]

...I was mistreated and scorned since before I can remember, to my twenty-first year. I... Was shown sympathy all of once in that time. My adoptive mother. But it didn't do anything. Everything just got worse. ...I.. Considered taking my life numerous times, especially when she fell ill. There was no cure for gula disease. Just borrowed time. My two choices for back then were... To live consumed by my bitterness, to become horrible... Or to take my own life. And part of me is a bit jealous of Angel and Rhys, still, because...

[ ...She sighs, curling in on herself slightly. ]

...Because no one would have missed me like they are. ...But then Mikaela extended a hand to me. She saved me. So... I think... I'd like to be like that. Even if it seems futile. I know... That miracles can happen. Even if they don't seem like them at first. So I'll keep going like that, Ardyn. Because even if you can't feel now... Maybe, one day...

1/2 cw: suicidal ideation

[scourgingstars]

...An entire planet I had fought my whole life to save and sacrificed my humanity for turned on me. My own brother ordered my execution, Clarith. And the punchline of that little joke is that I wish it had worked. The savior doesn't get a miracle of his own.

[Ardyn scowled, Luscinia hopping over to Clarith's shoulder instead for the moment like she knew what was coming.]

The tragedy of Ardyn Lucis Caelum has no happy ending. There's not a single person in all of Eos who ever remembered there was once a king who gave up his body and soul for his people. No one will lament the loss of a man redacted from history, and even less will mourn the death of the Accursed or the scourge he brought down upon the earth.

So I'm just thrilled you're stupid enough to have stumbled upon the impossible. Or to delude yourself into thinking a single word you say matters to me.

[scourgingstars]

You're daring to look at me and be thankful you didn't give into bitterness? How much better you must feel for that, when some of us don't have the luxury of being such a divine saint. [Ardyn snapped that viciously, and when he looked back to Clarith...his face was pale as a corpse's and marked by the corruption that made yellow eyes inhumanly bright in blackened malice.]

This is the result of being a selfless savior, Clarith. Of taking on the pain of others and caring nothing for the weight it places upon you in return.

So I don't want to hear it.

[desperateprayer]

[ Oh, it is terrifying. But for more than one reason. The words cut deep, and for a moment she's at a loss. Finally, everything she's been keeping in--especially from hearing about his story, his horrible life--just culminates in her outright slapping him. ]

Stop it! Stop... Stop pushing everyone away because you think you're not worth it! I'm not thankful I didn't give in to bitterness, Ardyn! I look at you, I hear what's happened to you, and I... I wonder why I got the miracle and you didn't! Why someone who was actually worth something wasn't saved, while I, a worthless person who's lost everything... Was saved!

[ There are tears. She's scared. She won't lie about that. But she's scared of a lot of things. ]

"Champion Bystander." I understand it now. It's... All I ever did was get to stand by and watch. For once, in my entire life, this cursed white hair was a blessing... And it meant I was left with nothing. Mikaela's gone, Ardyn. That's what I remembered last night. I remembered how hard we--myself and our employers--tried to save her. We hid her in a well no one knew about, and she still... Even though I endured two months in Lucifenia's prison, being "interrogated."

[ ...She's breaking down, right before his eyes, into sobs as she screams it all out. ]

It was never enough. I could never do anything. I don't... Don't deserve even half of what I have. That's why... I try so hard. That title is a slap in the face. It's just as much a dagger in the ribs as a real one. Because it tells everyone how futile everything I try is. I don't... Want to be the person who just stands by and watches anymore, not when I don't deserve it.

[scourgingstars]

...

[Even in that state, Ardyn was so caught off guard by the hand impacting his face that even the Starscourge began to disappear--there hadn't been much of the usual cold fury behind it past that single outburst, anyway. He was far too exhausted for more than that.]

It doesn't matter who was saved and who wasn't. And if there is a reason, that's just as worthless. [The color to his eyes was still too vivid when he focused on her again, traces of corruption still clear on his skin.]

You're better off a bystander than doing anything at all, when the path you're taking now will only put you in the same position as me.

[desperateprayer]

Then at least I'll have done something with this worthless life, Ardyn! Instead of just wasting my life watching as I lose everything! I don't want to do that anymore. Not when I've already lost so much by being that bystander. I can't... I just can't do that anymore. I can't sit back and lose everything again.

[ It would kill her. It really would. ]

[scourgingstars]

So you would rather spend your entire mortal life in servitude helping those who don't give a damn about you save only for what you can do for them?! And when that's done and you've fallen beneath the crushing, endless weight of all that you shouldered, they'll throw you aside because you're of no use to them anymore!

You're human, you complete imbecile, with the ability to do something other than hate and the ability to feel more than just anger, so live for yourself for once in your short, pointless life!

[desperateprayer]

I've already been tossed aside, Ardyn, so why does it matter?

[ "Why do I matter?"

You can't just erase a lifetime of abuse, of being told you're worthless. Not even a single person can reverse that by just being there. So of course everything she'd become was born of how worthless she felt. People worth more were suffering, so she should alleviate it. ]

[scourgingstars]

It matters because one of us isn't so far gone that they can't be saved. It matters because you're still alive and still human, and it matters because it's sickening to see anyone so selfless refuse to see the conclusion when it's right in front of them telling them that course of action is wrong.

[desperateprayer]

I'm not stupid. I know... That bad things, horrible things will happen to me. But I deserve it. I don't... Don't deserve the happiness I have. I don't deserve to even be alive. I'm a native of Elphegort, but I was passed over completely because... Because I don't have green hair. My father was probably an Elphe, too, but...

[ But she survived. She's a woman who survived a war she shouldn't have. And despite outward appearances, it has taken a large toll on her. ]

Yatski doesn't even exist anymore, and part of me still wonders if it's gone because of my own bitter wishes. It was razed and the village was... Everyone was burned. It almost sounds like karma for what they wanted to do to me. Isn't that funny?

[scourgingstars]

You think you deserve to suffer just for existing? The words of everyone that cursed you meant so much that you actually believe them?

If that place was leveled, maybe they did deserve it. And even if they didn't, it doesn't matter. They're dead all the same, and regret over any shred of value that may have been lost won't bring them back.

[desperateprayer]

[ She's not sure how to respond. It's not that the words mattered, she thinks, so much as it was her entire life for twenty-one years. It hasn't even been that long without them. But she can't seem to form the words needed to articulate this. Ardyn's... Definitely hit on something, at least? ]

[scourgingstars]

[Ardyn took the brief silence to collect himself, raking his right hand through his hair only to have it fall right back into his face. The corruption was gone entirely now, leaving just an ordinary look of aggravation.]

[desperateprayer]

...I'm sorry.

[ She looks... Kind of tired and defeated. ]

...I... All my life, I've been treated like nothing. Being treated nicely... By a few people... Doesn't change years of learning.

[scourgingstars]

Do you want that to change? [The snarling venom had given way to something quieter, covered in cold spite.]

Or would you rather be this for the rest of your life?

[desperateprayer]

...I don't know how. I don't... Know how to view my life as something worth anything. I don't... Know how to stop thinking that it's all right that I can die or be eternally tormented so long as... Everyone else is happy.

[scourgingstars]

...

[If this were the savior of two thousand years prior, insisting to Ardyn that saving Lucis at cost to himself was the only purpose he had, saying that he knew of no other option--]

[Ardyn Izunia probably would have pulled out his Armiger and killed him on the spot.]

[But this wasn't Lucis' former savior, it was Clarith. So with the furious reaction not being an option...what would he have told that savior, were Ardyn face to face with his mirror image?]

Find something to live for aside from 'other people'. Their happiness isn't above yours.