theairlock | week 7

[A deep breath, a flicker of a glare at him sitting down at her table as though he belonged there. She hid it behind a long drink of her coffee. But she listens, doesn't interject or argue.]

If we were going to sacrifice a "monster" wouldn't we have killed Roland straight away? Not adapted our meal planning to make sure he was doing okay?

Everyone has things that have hurt them, look at Nari and Clarith. I know you don't want to hear it but that doesn't mean you can never have anything more.

...Then tell me this, if you would.

What differentiates me from something like PAL in the first place? And don't say 'it's because you're one of us' or 'because you haven't hurt anyone here', that's not enough of a justification.

What is the difference between something inhuman that lies and manipulates for its own amusement, trampling on every living thing that stands in the way of its goals...and the murderous AI we've been living with for all these weeks?

I'm not mocking you right now. I want to know the difference as you see it, because if I can't understand that then I'll never understand why this group would so willingly align with one while abandoning the other.

I gotta admit, I don't know anything about the computer thing. I don't know what PAL is exactly but that's just it... PAL is a thing. Something created by a person with it's own goals and objectives. But he ain' a person. He can't learn and grow and change like a human being.

You can. You've proven that by gettin as bitter and mean as you are. But that just means there's room for you to heal and grow too. Ain' never gonna happen if ya don't let it though, sweetie.

'm not sayin it'll happen over night or things'll be perfect but we're all strugglin here and if you don't let the people around you help it ain' just yourself that's sufferin for it.

You think it don' tear me up inside knowin how much Leonard cares about you and knowin how little you're willing to try? Or that it don' break Clarith's heart that she can't reach you? You act like if you just push us away nothin is gonna change for you or us.

[Ardyn folded his hands on the table in front of him, looking to the black ring he still wore as he tried to recall what she'd told him before.] That was...what your cards said, was it not? Restoration, renewal. That if I relied on the rest of you, it would make a difference.

[He'd taken a terrible risk, one he knew was clawing at his now much clearer human mind with blackened hate and centuries of pain he'd both felt and caused.]

[Finally, he looked up at Queenie with a steady gaze that he managed to keep most of his uncertainty out of.]

...I still can't say I believe in fortune telling and divination, but I'd like to know if you think it too late for me to take another attempt at all of that.

[This felt like a normal conversation, not that talking with him before hadn't been normal but he was always so defensive. As though the more optimistic and hopeful someone was the fast he wanted them to get the hell away from him. But this...

This was so much more open.]

Ardyn... It's taken you millenia ta even consider it. You think a week is gonna make a difference?

That's what I'm asking you, Queenie.

Thirty-five years of being a selfless savior. Two thousand years of losing myself to spite and rage. Six or seven weeks of being something that was neither and yet both of the two at once.

I'm asking you, in absolute honesty, if it's too late to salvage what might still be human for just a little longer.

It will never be too late, as long as you're willing to try.

[Which is something she fully believes. She expects him to scoff at her for it though, to call her foolish for wanting to hope that much.]

And I hope you are... for Leonard's sake.

[And, in defiance of most likely all possible expectations, Ardyn...just laughed under his breath. It wasn't a mocking derision that left him, but something almost relieved and mixed with deep, deep exhaustion.]

I never expected him to take this as seriously as he did. Part of me still can't quite understand why he's fought this hard for this long.

...I don't want all of that struggling to have meant nothing.

He's stubborn and apparently has a weakness for what most people would write off as a lost cause. Maybe that's part of it too. If I give up on you it'll hurt him. Even if he tries to pretend it don'

[She sighs, takes a swig of her coffee, and then leans forward, a little more open to whatever the hell is happening here.]

Ardyn what's goin on, honey? I know... someone like you has to think I'm just an airhead and a floozy but... I keep the people I care about close and I know he cares about you even if you don't believe I care about him. You seemed pretty determined that his feelings didn't matter last week so why now?

...I don't think you anything of the sort. Compassionate to a fault, yes--but not stupid.

I did something careless after I left that meeting, Queenie. Maybe arguing with all of you set it off, or perhaps it was just a long decline into something that would have to break eventually, but it was careless all the same.

[He took a slow breath and sighed, raking a hand through his hair.]

After I left, I went to talk to PAL and made a deal with him. For the price of living with what I've done and what I became, he removed what made me 'Ardyn Izunia' in the first place.

I'm human again.

[For a moment she just stared at him, head tilted like she didn't quite understand the depth of what he meant. He'd never stopped being human, so far as she saw it. He'd just had other things added in. But she stares, eyes slowly widening.]

You- with PAL?

[She shakes her head hard, dismissing the questions of how and instead she's jumping up from her seat so she can throw her arms around him, squeezing him tight in a hug.]

That ain' careless, sweetie. I'm so happy for you.

[She won't even say "I told you so".]

-?!

[Ardyn froze up in genuine surprise, but Queenie would note the corpselike body temperature was definitely something warmer now.]

That's not--it's not that easy, Queenie, it's more complicated than just giving this back to me.

Edited 2017-06-28 23:14 (UTC)

Why?

[WHY DO YOU DO THIS EVERYTIME SHE HUGS YOU!?]

What's so complicated about it? Is it going to just fix everything like [finger snap] that? No. It ain' magic, I should know. And even then magic can't change who you fundamentally are.

But there's a chance, there's hope. So stop it.

Stop making up reasons why things can't just be better, dammit.

[And no she hasn't let go. In fact she might actually sit in your lap to make a point.]

It's not going to fix everything. Not by any measure.

Queenie, just...think for a moment. Would PAL have given me anything I would only benefit from? The weight of a human conscience and emotions can't handle two thousand years of darkness and atrocities.

Ardyn Izunia and Ardyn Lucis Caelum can't coexist without tearing asunder the whole made of two halves. Either I live forever as a monster forcing away sentiment, or I live and die as a human crushed beneath hatred and devastation of the Accursed.

...neither option was ideal, but I got PAL to give me a choice. This is better than I was, there can be no arguing that. But it's just another way of falling apart while struggling to hold myself together.

[And.. yeah, now she is sitting in your lap, Ardyn. Quiet for a long moment after that, considering the options, the weight of what he was saying. He had given up immortality to see that he could feel again and now he had to bear the weight of... something profoundly awful.

She couldn't help thinking of Credence, this poor man beaten down and abused by the world and then destroyed by the power it had given him. What could possibly make something like that better?

Then she gasped, looked up at him, voice barely more than a whisper.]

I could take it from you.

No, you absolutely will not.

[That much was snapped in response, but without the outright venom that had become standard--if anything it was anger born of genuine worry. He was so occupied with what he thought Queenie was implying that he completely ignored the fact that she was in his personal space.]

It's contained. No one deserves to take on the Starscourge as I did, and no one ever will again.

Not it but... the memory. If I can get my wand back... I could take away all those centuries. Bottle them up so you never have to see it again.

The parts that will break you with their weight...

[She reaches up, brushes her fingertips over his temple.]

I could just draw it out and it would vanish like smoke.

...

[Ardyn immediately fell silent, staring at Queenie like he wasn't even sure what to think. Would it really be that simple? He'd forget the Accursed, forget the rampaging hatred of the scourge coursing through him...his exile, Niflheim, Lunafreya, Noctis, Izunia-]

...no. [He shook his head slightly; yellow eyes sharply determined as his voice turned to conviction.] I have no right to run away from this; that would be an act of the coward you called me back at that party. And I am not a coward, now or ever.

Even if it destroys me once we leave this place, that is my choice to make and my end to reach after a life far too long for my preference. This price is a fair one for my humanity after all the pain that I caused, and I will accept it.

Edited (SORRY TEXT FORMATTING IS HARD APPARENTLY) 2017-06-29 00:05 (UTC)

And what will that do to Leonard? To Junpei? To all the people here that care about you?

There you go acting like your action don't impact anyone but yourself again. If you go and die after all of this? It'll destroy them. What makes you think leaving here is the end? Shouldn't that be your new beginning?

They already know, Queenie. I've talked to Church at the most length about it, but...[Ardyn sighed, brushing his hair out of his face.]

I wouldn't take something like that lightly or without approaching the subject first. I'm telling you--I do not deserve to forget. I don't want a new beginning, I just...want to rest, after all this time.

It's fine if you don't understand. I won't blame you for that. But it was always the most likely conclusion whether you understand it or not.

Maybe it's not about what you deserve...

[She sighs softly, leaning into him a little more.]

I think I can, though. Understand it. There's plenty of people that came back from the war and that's all they wanted, to make the memories stop, to be able to rest peacefully after fighting for so long. I can only imagine, with all your years, how much that is true for you.

There are so many things I could do to help, not just taking the memories away but dreamless sleep potions, cheering charms, there's dozens of ways to fight shell shock in the wizarding world... I just... [She draws her wand from a carefully disguised pocket and stares at it for a long moment, her head dropping to rest on his shoulder.]

can't.

[Ardyn put his left arm around Queenie's shoulders without thinking about the gesture, looking to his right hand and the black ring on it.]

...I've not been able to reach the Crystal's power since we arrived here. If I'd had my healing magic, then perhaps we wouldn't be down to the numbers we are. I could have saved even just one person, or taken Junpei's wounds that week we found him in the rest area. No matter how high the cost to myself--I would have done it. If I had even a fraction of my abilities, we'd have long since escaped.

And that's kept occurring to me every so often, ever since we arrived here. If I could have healed even one person, if I could have defended anyone, if I could even just cast Protect, then Larimer would be-

[He broke that off, pressing that hand to his face to stave off a headache.]

...I've been utterly useless to all of you from the very beginning. If a king can not protect himself, how is he to protect others?

What makes you more useless than any of the rest of us?

You think I haven't thought that every moment we've been here? Never mind what I could have done with my wand but-

[She takes in a shaky breath, has to let it out slow to stop herself from getting too upset by this turn in the conversation.]

I can see into people's minds Ardyn. I could have seen what Lee was planning, I could have heard Angel's cries for help, I could have known that Roland was slipping... I could have stopped Choro before he thought that was his only option.

I could have told Kip not to try to be our goddamn hero and he would still be here. [And she loses that fight, breath catching in her throat as she presses her face into his scarves.]

Never mind the healing I could do or the things I could make happen with my wand, just being what I am would have saved so many of us. What makes you more responsible for protecting people than me?

Because it was supposed to be my purpose. Saving people was...what I was told I was chosen for and the reason I existed. Even if it was all a lie in the end, that's not a feeling I can just discard as though it meant nothing.

[Deep breath.]

...you're right. It--that responsibility should never have fallen to any one of us. Not even me.

Maybe that was what you were meant to be in your world but not here.

The rules are different here. And, I've been saying this since the beginning, we can only get through this together. We all have to work together to make sure nothing else happens.

No matter how tempting

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scourgingstars - 2017-06-29 04:56 (UTC) - Expand

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goteachother - 2017-06-29 06:19 (UTC) - Expand

week 7

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cw: suicidal ideation

Re: cw: suicidal ideation

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