theairlock | week 6

Entry tags:

!round 2,
!week 6

week 6

[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!]

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[She flinches at the words a little. Not because they're spoken with any particular intensity but that makes it worse, even. Because he's so calm about how deeply he's been hurt. It breaks her heart.

And she's only been making it worse all week, she knows that. He was there for her when she was so hurt by Lee. Surely she...] Isn't it fear? Distrust, hate... where do the come from if not fear and anger and hurt. You've been holding onto this terrible thing for so long...

[She moves from her seat, stepping around the table and smiling sadly down at him.]

I'm going to hug you. [Soft and determined but enough warning that he could grab her shoulder and force her away if he really wanted to. Don't worry she'll be careful of your bird.]

And you think sympathy will help? Here I actually thought you sensible enough to think otherwise. I don't have anything left to fear--not solitude, death, or even the gods' wrath itself.

[But he didn't stop her or push her back; it wasn't worth the fight with Nishitani (and probably half the room) to bother.]

...What did the rest of the cards say, Queenie. You've changed your tune so abruptly it leads me to wonder why.

Hope. [And she squeezes him, swaying slightly as though soothing motions and soft words would make anything better.] You have hope left to fear. There's so much good that could be had here. So much room for healing but you are so determined that you're a lost cause, that there is no hope left for you that... the idea that your wrong is just... terrifying.

[She doesn't want to tell him how much of the pain of his history was in those skipped cards. How much clearer that horrible ache is from the cards instead of his cool detached tale.]

You still frighten me. I'm not about to say you don't. But I think I understand better, now.

Even if there is someone left in all of this to bother hoping for, it's hardly even a fragment. You're smarter to be afraid of me than to bother with paltry sentiments like hope and sympathy.

Paltry sentiments? [Her brow furrows, she bites her lip. Dammit Ardyn you are infuriating. She's trying so hard and you're just...

Such an asshole.]

Hope is the only thing that keeps us going. Better hope than spite.

[queenie calls it how it is]

I would have to disagree; spite works as well as anything else.

Why is it you think that because you've been hurt you're entitled to hurt everyone around you?

[If anything the insight into his past, that flicker of sympathy for him, made it even worse to hear all of this all over again. It wasn't frustrating like Nari who she knew was so scared. He was just... so cold about it.

Which was the point but, honestly.]

Everyone has been nothing but nice to you, encouraging and hopeful and trying to give you a chance and you just spit in everyone's faces.

Morgana's Grace, Ardyn would it kill you to just... fucking be nice for once in your miserable life!?

...It already did.

[He laughed under his breath, stepping away as Luscinia fluttered restlessly in the back of his scarf.]

What little faith I somehow have remaining isn't given so easily as the rest of this group. Having an attempted execution ordered by your dear little brother tends to do that, you see. The fact that I'm even trying to go along with this so any of us can survive is what passes for 'being nice' with me right now.

[She gasps softly, one hand coming up to cover her mouth, about to apologize.

And then he keeps going, keeps talking. As though she should be grateful that he hadn't just slaughtered everyone without a thought or care and she stares at him, horrified and shocked and he keeps talking-

And then she's bringing her hand up to slap him, to make him stop being so very heartless and wicked and distressing.]

ENOUGH!

[And that was twice he'd been slapped by someone here, which quite frankly seemed like a low number even to Ardyn himself. His head jerked sharply to the side with what might have been a look of brief surprise, left hand brought to his face like he was trying to fully process that.]

[It actually hurt. And, more surprising, it actually shut him up.]

I'm sorry. [Not about the slap, not sorry about that.]

I'm sorry that other people hurt you, I'm sorry that your brother is so heartless. But that does not make it okay for you to treat other people just as badly, if not worse.

We didn't do a damned thing to you and I'm sorry but not being able to feel doesn't give you the right to crush everyone else's feelings by being so cold and negative all the time. Like it's our fault you're in this situation!

It's not!

...What do you people want from me? [He sounded genuinely confused by that, lowering his hand and gesturing as though to indicate the entire mansion.]

I tried to warn you all that I was turning into something inhuman, and so many of you brushed that aside as though it didn't matter, believing in the healer that I feared would cease to exist. Then I admitted I was something else entirely--I told you Ardyn Lucis Caelum was essentially dead, and still most of this ridiculous group refused to accept that you're living with a monster. You act surprised, even offended when I act as what I told you I was.

I'm crushing everyone's feelings? Why don't you ask Yuuri who she spoke to in the garden when she seemed at her lowest point, or who pointed out to Heart that distancing himself isn't going to get any of us out of here alive?

I'm doing everything I'm capable of to keep this group together, because I'm stupid enough to let myself think some of you might not turn on me!

NO ONE IS TURNING ON ANYONE!!

[What is it about him that just makes her so mad before he even opens his stupid mouth.]

Why is it so hard to understand that? Morgana, Merlin, and all the questless knights! Why is that so difficult.

And that's great that you were there for them when they really needed it, for me too. But if all you do is tear people down for caring about you unless they're actively distraught already then what the hell do you think is gonna happen?

Mercy, Ardyn. We aren't all as capable of taking emotional punishment as Leonard is... And do you think he's not slipping too? [His reading certainly seemed to imply as much.]

Haven't you ever heard "If you can't say something nice don't say anything at all."

[it's the natural reaction to ardyn, queenie.]

You really think I of all people don't know that? I don't-

[Ardyn broke off, scowling and stepping back.]

...Forget it.

No. No.

You've been pushing my buttons for weeks. You don't get to just walk the hell away now.

You don't what, Ardyn? What? What could possibly be worse than anything else you've said in the last week?!

You don't give a shit what anyone else feels so don't you dare try to take the high road and spare my feelings now, you smug son of a bitch. [And her voice is shaking, her eyes a little damp. Not from being sad or upset so much as just being so mad she can't think straight.]

Don't claim you understand how I feel. How any of this feels. Until you've had the human you forgot you were and the monster you know you are so harshly thrown together that you have no idea who you are anymore, you have no idea.

I don't care what you think, and it's no concern of mine whether you believe me or not. I don't want to hurt any of you, and that's the last desire of the savior king that all of you knew. Church takes on more than he should--far more than I should ever have asked of him. Every last one of you does, and don't you dare assume I don't realize that.

The last desire of a man who you insist is dead. But he's not. You're not. And you're not some uncontrollable monster. Roland? Roland had an uncontrollable demon inside of him. You don't!

Maybe you just want to pretend like that part of you is dead because it's safer, isn't it? It's so much easier pushing things away instead of holding on to every bit of feeling you can. Because feeling is scary, feeling means you get hurt and you're just so fucking scared you'd rather be dead inside than risk getting hurt again.

Well guess what, Ardyn. Living means getting hurt sometimes.

It's easy enough for you to assume there's no such monster standing here, when most of you haven't even seen my true face. And I can guarantee you right now that none of you want to.

[He took a slow breath, obviously trying to keep some part of a very short temper in check.]

I am not afraid of getting hurt, and I don't need someone that's existed a scant few decades to talk to me about living.

Oh there's plenty of monster. [She scowls, shakes her head and sighs.]

And the rest is just cowardice.

[She is so done with this argument you stubborn asshole. Fine. Spend the rest of eternity hating yourself and everything around you. Go on. She isn't going to try to stop you anymore.]

...You're going to dare call me a coward? You wouldn't stand up against a fraction of the things I've seen, after the way I've watched you shatter and struggle to pull yourself back together here.

Accurate cards or not, you don't know a damn thing about me.

I'd rather shatter a thousand times and have memories of the people I loved for it than be empty.

...

[And that, he didn't seem to have an answer for.]

Edited 2017-06-22 04:22 (UTC)

[Does.... this mean she won?

Is there any way anyone can "win" at something like this?

She needs to be drunker, now... off to collect jello shots.]

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week 6

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