week 2

[airlockedmods]

Week 2

[It's been about a week since the Champions woke up in their new consumerist hellscape of a temporary home and, despite a few odd goings on and the bomb incident with Church and Nari, things haven't been as bad as they could be. No one is even dead yet! But let's see how long that lasts.

Enjoy your week, Champions.]

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(( Also, don't forget to submit your AC and item rolls! You can also bother your Overseer here. ))

Comments

[burninglight]

...I said that I wouldn't ask, and I don't intend to. So if it's something you wish to talk about for whatever reason, go ahead. I don't have much reason to go about telling other people's secrets.

[serrata]

[ It seems, for a long time, like she's not going to take him up on the offer. She doesn't know where to start, even if she did but keeping it in her chest feels like she's trying to hold poison inside of her. ]

... it's going to sound ridiculous.

[ She says, to the supervillain. But everything her life has become sounds so unbelievable that her first instinct is to pre-emptively discourage an accusation of telling a tall tale. ]

But I promise it's true. All of it.

[burninglight]

I have a very high tolerance for 'ridiculous'.

[Said the former amalgamation of malice.]

[serrata]

[ Alright. Breath in, breath out, Yuuri. ]

When I was... about eighteen, I would have been, something happened in my world. A kind of infection started spreading and... well, people died. Almost everyone did. And the people that were left... f--for the most part, it wasn't really safe to be around them anymore.

[ It's not exactly the whole story, but it's the parts that really matter. That's what she needs him to understand. ]

My friends and I were at school when it happened and when the chaos eventually died down a little, we realized it wasn't safe to leave anymore. So we had to live there if we wanted to live at all. And we were so lucky, because it was so well stocked. It was the kind of building that generated its own electricity and it had its own water filtration and as long as we stayed there, we were safe.

... but. My sister was still out there, all by herself. I'd taken Ruu-chan to school that morning and that was the last time I ever saw her.

[burninglight]

...

[Ardyn had gone very quiet and very, very pale. Was it--no, that didn't add up. Yuuri clearly wasn't from anywhere Ardyn knew of back on Eos, so it was impossible for her to be speaking of the same infection that brought on such a calamity.]

[Still, it was familiar. Too familiar.]

I'm sorry. [...for what? Was that sympathy? Or was it an actual apology, for bringing down nearly the same manner of disaster himself.]

[serrata]

[ She has to swallow thickly before she can continue. ]

It was... it hurt. It physically hurt me to think that Ruu-chan was out there all by herself. That I couldn't do anything to save her. It started to hurt so much I could barely breathe and even though I knew it wouldn't do me any good, I couldn't stop thinking about her.

Until one day, I just... did. I stopped thinking about her. I stopped thinking about all of it, because I couldn't stand it any more and then I... I forgot.

[ Her voice breaks and she has to draw in a breath. ]

I just... I forgot all about her! What... w--what sort of sister would...?

[burninglight]

It's...remarkable, the things one forgets. The mind of a mortal is a stunningly fragile thing, and it breaks so easily with enough strain.

[Ardyn folded his arms loosely on the table leaning on it and looking off to the side.]

...I can't remember my brother. Oh, I recall his voice and face, to be sure. I know that 'Izunia Lucis Caelum' was a person who existed, once. But I can't quite recall anything before that, any time when he was something other than the person that I detest more than any other in two thousand years of history.

[serrata]

[ She looks a little taken aback. It's one thing for her to have shut Ruu out of her heart like she did, as an ill thought out defense mechanism. But she can't imagine what it would be like to have lived as long as Ardyn has and to cast her mind back and realize something like that had simply been lost to time.

It makes her feel a little ill, if she's honest. ]

He... he was in your profile, right? Your brother.

[ Dislikes: His brother, betrayal, abandonment

It paints one hell of a picture. ]

What happened? ...if you don't want to answer, then... you can just pretend I never asked.

[burninglight]

It’s a long story.

...Effectively, he cast me out of the family line and all matter of historical record.

[serrata]

... Th--that's a bit much, isn't it?

[ Yuuri. ]

[burninglight]

I did say it was a long story.

Our world was beset by an infection not unlike what you seem to speak of. My work as a healer was all that stood between humanity and oblivion, and I was set to be the first ruler of a kingdom founded from the ashes of a fallen civilization.

My brother and I were the first of the line of Lucis as it came to be known--a bloodline of kings. Yet my brother...hm. I suppose he was jealous, though I no longer remember the details of it. Either way, he took my place and sought to eliminate me. Yet my healing had an unfortunate side effect, and by then I had ceased to be mortal--he had no ability to kill me. So I was exiled, and the historical mentions of 'Ardyn Lucis Caelum' are no more than a lie perpetuated by a false king under a stolen name.

[serrata]

He... he took your name?

[ Something about that makes her stomach curdle a bit. It seems perverse, almost. Her mind, rather unhelpfully, presents her with the image of a scavenger bird picking carrion and flying away with it. No, not even carrion -- no corpse, after all. And taking his name, only to send him away so Ardyn could live on knowing what had been stolen from him... it's vile. ]

But... wait a second. How did he even get away with that, unless...?

[ How could he have just taken Ardyn's place without anyone noticing unless... ]

[burninglight]

Easily. With me relegated to some miserable forsaken island, there was still one person with my face in Lucis.

[serrata]

... You were twins.

[ This is starting to sound like a monstrously cruel cosmic joke. ]

So he... he pretended to be you and then... how did he excuse exiling you like that? Surely someone had to have known something was wrong?

[burninglight]

I told you--I had ceased to be mortal. I was more plague than human by then; I'm sure he told them their savior was ridding Lucis of just another daemon.

[serrata]

So no one even knew.

[ There's something vile and perverse about that Yuuri can't articulate. It's one thing to not be allowed to die, and then to have someone try anyway and then throw him aside. But to have his own brother do it and then for that man to live a lie for the rest of his life, to be buried or cremated or whatever Ardyn's kingdom did with their dead under the name of Ardyn Lucis Caelum.

There would be a family, children, a wife who would think the man they loved was Ardyn Lucis Caelum and they'd never have any reason to call him a liar. ]

That's disgusting.

[ Her voice is low and fierce. ]

After all you'd done for them and he just threw you away like trash. How did he even live with himself?

[burninglight]

...I don't know.

[There was something very distant and tired to the calm look on Ardyn's face now.]

We must have been close, once. But I only remember a jealous king stealing all I sought to build.

[serrata]

[ The sigh she gives is long and slow and tired. She feels worn to the bone just hearing him talk about it, so she can't imagine how it must feel for Ardyn. How it must feel to have two thousand years rattling around in there.

She doesn't even think before reaching across the table and carefully setting her hands on top of his. Maybe if she herself weren't so strung out and exhausted, she'd be unsettled by how much it seemed like second nature to do so. ]

That's the worst part, isn't it? Knowing that there was something else there but no matter how hard you look... it's just gone. And there's just a... a hole where it should be.

[burninglight]

[Ardyn's hands went very still under Yuuri's, as if he wasn't sure what to do with the gesture.]

...it's the same for you, isn't it? Maybe you recall her face, or what she sounded like--can you remember anything else? What she liked, what she didn't...if ever you bickered like I presume siblings should, or if you were inseparable?

[serrata]

... Bits and pieces. I remember her face and her voice and... I remember how small she was.

[ It's her turn to go a little far away. Her eyes have settled on the middle distance and she's not looking at where her gaze as fallen but she's seeing that sickly hot summer morning, the last time she saw her baby sister alive. ]

She was a lot younger than me... nearly ten years, I think. But even for a little girl that age, she was small. Her summer uniform for school had a little yellow sunhat with it but even the smallest size we could find for her used to blow off in a strong breeze.

And she'd go chasing off after it. The amount of time she made me sick to my stomach because I'd turned away for a second and she'd wandered off to do something or other...

[ She doesn't smile, exactly, but something in her eyes warms a bit. ]

I guess you could say she was a bit of a troublemaker. But I didn't mind.