airlockedmods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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theairlock2017-06-25 10:59 am
airlockedmods) wrote in theairlock2017-06-25 10:59 am
week 7
[For the first time in several weeks there is no new memorial in the garden. No new body in the morgue, no bloody mess for the roombas to clean. Choromatsu is still in need of time to heal and constant vigilance but he's alive. They're all alive for once on a Sunday and, even with the terrible realizations their returning memories may bring, there's a sense of hope for the first time in a long time.
There is no new floor this week.
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday
[ooc: Don't forget to to turn in your activity for week 6, submit your memory regains and put in your threads for the Benefactors!]
There is no new floor this week.
[ooc: Don't forget to to turn in your activity for week 6, submit your memory regains and put in your threads for the Benefactors!]
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[yeah funny you mention because someone has absolutely no right to be angry about that]
I was only thinking that you reminded me of Noctis, for just a second or two.
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[...well, he's stuck in this conversation now.]
That prophecy you took such issue with all those weeks ago--it wasn't about me, though I think that goes without saying now. It was about a descendant of the Lucian line--Noctis Lucis Caelum.
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Oh hell no. I remind you of the chosen one? Noooooo.
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You're not helping your case--he complained quite a lot himself.
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[He glanced off to the side, pushing his hair out of his face.]
Some people would have just shot him on sight and not wasted effort on mercy, in your position. They would likely be justified for it, as well.
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Huh. I don't feel merciful.
[He still really, really hates the guy. Here, though, he rubs his arm, thinking about action and responsibility. Revenge. Questions he doesn't know if he got to ask.]
It's just... if there's anything I've learned from those two games--uh, besides how to count in hexadecimal and make a bomb out of dry ice and a PET bottle...
[After a moment, he looks back down at his flowchart. The death count listed within each fragment of memory. That's what they always strive for, isn't it? The ultimate goal.
Zero.]
It's living. Everyone living... gives us more options. Better ones.
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Hell, I can tell you what I did say in the timeline just before we escaped.
[He rests a mechanical finger on the box right in the middle of the page.]
I grabbed him by the old man turtleneck and shouted, "What's the other option?!"
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[He crosses his arms and tilts his head a little.]
Why? What'd wonderboy say?
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[Whether that was serious or a joke, any trace of a smile on Ardyn's face left it. He looked off to the side again, with that distant stare that made it seem like he was probably somewhere else entirely.]
[It almost seemed like he was going to ignore the question entirely, until:
'This time...you can rest in peace.'
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Sounds like... if you and I can see eye to eye about anger, maybe... he's the one who understands what it's like to be tired.
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...If...
[He looks away, rubbing the back of his neck, then turns back to Ardyn.]
If you tell me what you did--what he went through, I mean. Since I know the general picture. If I have an idea what it was like, then... maybe... Well, I could tell you how I'd feel about it. If I'm a little like him.
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[He will never, ever forget how it felt to carry the Starscourge within his body. Never forget the promise he swore to the living ghost of a king.]
It's hard to hate you, Ardyn. For those of us who can see some shade of what your life's been like... well. [Junpei closes his mouth, then swallows and shakes his head. He's not good at the emotional stuff.] Maybe that Noctis guy felt something like that, too. Like something you did... made him understand some small part of everything you are.
cw:suicidal ideation and boy how bout them ffxv spoilers
[Ardyn hesitated--not out of shame or remorse, but as though he was evaluating something. If anyone wasn't going to turn on him after hearing even a fraction of what he'd done, then it would be Junpei of all people. The only person who knew what it felt like to live overtaken by hatred and the need for vengeance; the only one that had even the slightest idea the lengths Ardyn might have gone to and the lives he'd stepped on to get there.]
I don't believe I remember the full extent of it, but I've a reasonable picture of things as it stands right now.
[He wasn't regretful in the slightest. But he certainly wasn't prepared for the few people he liked to see reason and turn on him, either.]
['I trust you, Junpei Tenmyouji.']
Emperor Aldercapt wished to defeat Lucis and steal the Crystal; I gave Niflheim all the resources they would ever need to do that. I watched Insomnia burn and take Noctis' father with it. The only reason he and his three-man Kingsglaive weren't in the city is because I orchestrated a false peace treaty dictating he was to marry the princess of Tenebrae--the Oracle, Lunafreya Nox Fleuret. Her role was to do what I once did; hold back the scourge. Once I killed her as well, things started moving a little more swiftly. The nights grew longer, daemons more prolific.
When he and his friends arrived at the magitek laboratory in Gralea, they found the city overcome by daemons. I saw to it they were separated and Noctis' Armiger disabled, forcing him to resort to the power of his father's ring. [Ardyn's right hand shifted restlessly, brushing his hair out of his eyes again.] The Emperor and High Commander both were infected by then; all I did was make sure the latter was in a position to confront them once the group had reunited.
[sorry ravus]
...From there I've something of a blank spot in my memories, but what I do know is that the plague took hold of the world in an endless night for ten years. Humanity itself may be over, or there may yet be some survivors remaining--the latter is more likely, now that I consider it. I went back to a dead and empty Insomnia populated with naught but daemons, and I waited.
When Noctis finally came to confront me, we fought in what had once been his home and my own. I don't need to tell you who lost.
As long as I exist on Eos, so does the Starscourge. The only way to banish it--the only way to kill me--is for the True King to become the Crystal's champion and wield its full power at cost of one's own life. Everything I did to Noctis was to push him to that. So that my revenge would be seen to its end; the Lucian line is over, or it should be.
I've never made any secret of what the savior became, not to any of you. But perhaps I failed to impress upon any you just how far the favored son of Lucis actually fell to begin with.
cw: suicidal ideation
Well, that part's not so hard to imagine. It's all familiar, just on a more fantastic scale. He breathes in, breathes out, then shakes his head.]
Yeah, you know what, I would've told you where you could shove your goddamned Crystal. I'd've spent those ten years coming up with a really cool one-liner for the occasion. But...
[He brushes the pad of his thumb over the line where flesh meets metal.]
I would've gone through with it, too. Wielded that power to take you out. To do what you wanted. [He looks up, then down again.] And it sounds like... it sounds like... He might have realized that was what you wanted. [He looks up, and this time he holds that gaze.] That your last act--as you, as king, as--as whatever--would be to take the Starscourge out with you. So maybe...
[For that stupid prophecy to work, there had to be an Ardyn, right? There had to be an avatar of evil, a concentration of everything wrong in the world, or else how could they destroy it? By the same token, there always had to be a Noctis, someone who would rise to the occasion, someone who would take that long game of loss and loss and loss and put an end to it.
There is always a Zero, making puzzles. There is always a challenger to solve them.]
As someone taking it upon himself to do pretty much the same thing, maybe he... understood. Or had his own way of understanding it.
[Even espers can't walk hand in hand, mind in mind, as one.]
...Maybe he just wanted someone to tell him the same thing. That he did all that needed to be done, and... could finally rest.
cw: suicidal ideation
[Which is one hell of a thing to say after admitting to both committing global genocide and making one person's life a living hell just because 'fuck the Lucian bloodline'.]
It was almost funny, at the time. Centuries of wandering, all the effort and planning I had to make sure laid itself out in just the correct manner--and he didn't even have the decency to hate me at the end.
[Ardyn sighed, looking lost and exhausted.]
...I don't understand why any of this was ever necessary. What did I of all people do in the first place that deserved living an eternity in darkness? That Ardyn only ever wanted to serve his people and save the world. Was that so terrible that he had to become this as punishment?
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[After a moment, he blinks and rubs his face.]
Sorry. Zero kept saying it. God, I hate that bastard so much. But he has a point.
[He turns his hands over and looks at his mismatched palms.]
If a rock-paper-scissors tournament had two to the hundredth power participants, there would need to be one hundred rounds before a winner was declared. One person would have to win one hundred times in a row to get to the top. So any one person's chances are basically nil.
[The hands close slowly into fists.]
But there will be a winner. Someone is going to win one hundred rounds of rock-paper-scissors in a row, purely by chance. Because life is unfair.
[Akane tried to teach him about the anthropic principle, but it's all muddled now. Life isn't sudoku, Junpei can't keep looking until the numbers pop out one by one, clear as day--if this and this, then this must be. Humans aren't like that. Humans... are selfish, ugly creatures.
And terrible. And beautiful.
He looks up.]
I... I have the luxury of living in a world where I don't have to believe in fate, Ardyn. I don't have to believe some asshole gods have dictated my life from birth to death, that I'm part of some plan bigger than the schemes of mortal minds. But I do believe that life has to have meaning, or else, what's the point?
[What's the point of minds made to make meaning? What's the point of hearts, of consciousness, of the 'I' Takumi talked about one night before he died?]
I just think... in a world that fucking hates happiness, it's up to us to figure that crap out. You know. For ourselves.
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