[ Yuuri's been here on Enso for a while now. Long enough that she's gotten a... sense for things and she's started to settle in and find a role for herself. It helps a little to have a routine and even though she's waiting every waking moment for the other shoe to drop, the only regularity has been how often newcomers arrive. So she makes it her monthly duty to go out across the islands and find anyone who needs help.
(And it's certainly nothing to do with wanting to see familiar faces. Nothing to do with still hoping against hope that after being so thoroughly disappointed on her arrival. Nothing whatsoever.)
They're arriving on the beach this month, it seems, washing up like driftwood and she's just glad there don't seem to be any injuries -- there's only so much patching up they can do with such rudimentary medical supplies. She's mulling over their luck that this set of arrivals seem to be happening with such little fanfare and
then
she sees a sodden but heart-stoppingly familiar mop of black and silver and wine-red in the sand, just like all the other newcomers and she comes to a sharp halt. For a split second she wonders if maybe it's just the Ardyn she knows is already here, but why would he be here on the beach with all the newcomers? But why would there be another Ardyn here when the Storyteller had already pulled one in, unless he was different enough to provide the Storyteller with new tales, unless, unless, unless...
Her heart's in her throat when she approaches, her steps slow and cautious. Yuuri knows well by now that she can't just charge in blindly and expect any less than a disaster. So it's with that thought in mind that she makes her way over to him, appreciating more than anyone the irony of the fact that she looks like she's dressed head to toe in Lucian fashion but totally, blissfully ignorant of the irony that comes with her addressing him as - ]
[At first the girl's voice doesn't even register. Izunia is busy trying to figure out exactly how he came to be on a beach - complete with tropical heat, sand in places sand doesn't belong, and salt water soaking his hair and clothes - to notice anything outside his own head at first.
But then he hears the girl's voice, and he looks up -
and then he realizes
she called him Izunia.
Thanks, Yuuri, there is now a giant beanpole having a complete heart attack at the sight of you. His eyes are a natural hazel instead of Ardyn's uncanny yellow, and the clothes are in a bit better repair - true black instead of faded grey, a navy swirl of a scarf instead of an orange one - but still the same style, and -
And no one should know him to be Izunia. No one save Gilgamesh, and the girl is very clearly nothisArdyn'stheir the Shield of the King.
Izunia's reaction is to freeze. But he's trained himself well, and Ardyn's reaction - Ardyn would get angry. So he does.]
[ She steps back just a little too fast and with just a little too much fright to chalk entirely up to being startled by his reaction. Her hands are up, placating and defensive all at once and she looks for all the world like she's torn between coming up with an excuse and just bolting up the beach.
Right. Okay. Neither of the Ardyns she knows. ]
I-- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-- [ come on, Yuuri. Calm down. ] I just-- I thought you were someone I knew. B--but that's obviously not the case, so...
[ well it's technically not a lie but when she's saying it so nervously, it sure sounds like one ]
[He is certainly distressing her and he'll probably feel bad about it later, but right now - Right now Izunia is fucking panicking under the layers of scarves and temper he wears as 'Ardyn.' Nothing could have prepared him for this.
[ She flinches back a step, just for a moment. But then she tells herself -- no, no matter how much he raises his voice or snarls at her like that, what does Yuuri have to be afraid of? What, here on this island where death means nothing and even the Accursed Immortal isn't that much harder to kill than any other human?
And what good would dancing around the truth do, regardless?
She takes a steadying breath, swallows hard and pulls herself to her full height. It's hardly anything compared to Ardyn, of course, but it makes her feel just a little better. ]
It's your name, isn't it? You told it me yourself. Not-- not the you I'm talking to now but...
[ she sighs and scrapes her hair back from her face with her hands. ]
[ ... He's looking at her like she's a stranger and though she'd expect Ardyn of all people to know her on sight... maybe with her dressed like this, in this strange place where he has no way to tell friend from for, she's as good as a stranger. Because if he hasn't used that name in however long, and he's talking to her like he's still possessed of sanity...
Yuuri's arms are folded across her chest but then one hand steals up absently to touch her left shoulder where under the white cloth of her coat there's black ink on her skin, a reminder, a promise to the man she'd decided was good enough to be her king. ]
... Then... are you going by a different name now?
[That gesture... It means something, it's clear, but damn if he knows what. Some kind of touchstone -
She's as unsettled as he is, though. It's realizing that that gets Izunia to finally take a breath, release the readiness to pull a weapon from the Armiger, and slide into the healer-king persona instead.]
That... name isn't familiar to me, no.
[Even the sounds of it aren't familiar. It's certainly no name of Solheim, or baby kingdom Lucis, still rising from the ashes.
And yet he finds himself strangely reluctant to tell her to call him Ardyn.]
She tries to hide her disappointment but it's clear as day in the way her shoulders droop and her mouth sets into a frown. Lesson learned, then, Enso. Getting your hopes up is stupid. She's gotten the message loud and clear.
She sighs and gives him a weary smile. ]
It's... Well, it's a very long story. I'm not sure where I should even start at all but...
[ Well. The truth would be a good idea, perhaps. ]
Do you have any idea where you are right now? Or how you got here?
[Whatever point she starts from, he knows he's going to be full of anxiety until she reaches the end. There is something unique about a girl who, even for a moment, calls him Izunia, and he's going to get to the bottom of it, no matter what he has to do.]
I haven't the foggiest, actually.
[He makes a show of glancing around, and then shrugs. Nope, nothing familiar here.]
Then I suppose that's a good enough place to start.
[ She gives him another one of those hasty smiles and then turns to look over her shoulder, considering just what she should do with him. They can't just stand here on the beach forever but she's a little worried that if she starts leading him back to the huts, they might run into someone who already knows him. Or even worse, the Ardyn who's already here. She absolutely doesn't want that happening until both of them have been prepared. ]
Well... before anything, I think it might be a good idea to get off this beach. If you don't mind following me, I can get you to somewhere there'll be fire and something to eat?
[He'll only pause to shake some of the sand out of his coat before following. Ugh, but Ardyn's favored dress shoes are a pain on sand. It's such a little thing, and yet, with his guard up and the feeling of needing to completely focus to pull off the ruse, instead of running it automatically the way he did for years and years, it weighs on his mind.]
[ It's not a long trek from the beach to her hut -- she'd made a point of choosing somewhere to stay that was a little more central, especially for cases like this. And while it's just as humble as all the other huts around the islets, it's clear that Yuuri's at least put some effort into making it look a little more like home. There's some tattered blankets strewn around an empty fire pit and she's even taken the time to fill a little clay pot with dried flowers. Anything to make this place seem a little less depressing. ]
Please, just sit down wherever you like -- I'm sorry it's such a mess. I'll start a fire going in just a second.
[ She's picking out some firewood as she says this and she has her back to him. All the better to not have to look at him when she speaks up. ]
If you say your name isn't Izunia, then... you must be Ardyn Lucis Caelum. Is that right?
[Ah, but if only she had been looking, to see the expression he makes at that question! Because it's only the briefest uncontrolled flicker of too many emotions happening at once.]
That's right. And no need to apologize, I've stayed in far worse conditions.
[When she turns around, he's watching her with a face full of carefully cautious curiosity, seated casually on one of the blankets near the fire pit, his feet just off it to keep the sand at a minimum.]
But can you forgive me for being intensely curious as to how you would know that in the first place?
No, it's more than fair. If a stranger came out of nowhere and just knew my name... I think I'd have some questions for them.
[ Not that she's looking forward to answering any. She comes back to the fire pit with some decent kindling and starts arranging everything, more for an excuse to keep her eyes on her work than on him. ]
It's... complicated. I know I've been dancing around it a lot but it's complicated and it's awkward and I-- [ a high-pitched, slightly nervous laugh. ] I'm not even sure how much of it you're going to believe.
But you understand that where we are right now... it's not Lucis or wherever you were before, right? It's a completely different world and we've all been pulled into it one by one.
Here, allow me. As a guest, it's the least I can do.
[Also, for all that Ardyn was the hardcore traveller, Izunia has probably quite a bit more experience with campfires than she does. He won't push if she wards him off, but otherwise he assembles the whole thing quite efficiently...
And with a spark of magic to light it, because if she knows him by name, or his brother's name, or whichever, then he probably doesn't have to be worried about hiding that.]
Just breathe. I swear to withhold any disbelief until you've finished.
[Gentle, kind, perhaps even warm, even though under the surface the pace at which the answers come is strangling him.]
And yes. I figure I ought know the realm well enough by now, after travelling it for so long. Not to mention where I last remember being...
Edited (rereads tag before bed, observes missing words, "fuck") 2017-12-15 07:07 (UTC)
[ She almost protests that she's the host so she should be doing the work -- but it seems a bit silly to insist on propriety in a situation like this. So she just settles back, chewing the inside of her mouth as she watches his hands, the fire. It's easier when she doesn't have to look him in the face and she can pretend she really is talking to a stranger and not--
Not the person she knows so well. Come on, Yuuri, surely it takes a little more than this to rattle you? ]
Well. This isn't the only place like this -- not the only place that pulls people in, I mean. I don't know how common it is but it's happened to me and a group of people in a world before I was brought here. Am I making sense? I was pulled from the world I was born in, to a different one before coming here. And, um...
[ God. She can't recount the whole Airlocked story at him because frankly, who needs that baggage laid on them from a stranger? It feels like a lie not to, if only by omission, but Yuuri isn't stupid enough to march out the whole... everything their stay on the Fantasy Sweet turned out to be. Especially if what she's starting to suspect turns out to be true. ]
One of the people there with us was... well, the people who'd set this whole thing up told us his name was Ardyn Izunia. But when he introduced himself, he said he was Ardyn Lucis Caelum.
[Izunia always preferred to be doing something with his hands, at times like this, so it all works out. The grand gestures were all Ardyn's; Izunia was careful and precise, until he forced himself to be sweeping and loose.
After so long, he doesn't have to second-guess himself about the precise amount of sweeping and loose he should be, but it's still preferable to have something to do with his hands, like carefully piling firewood into exactly the proper shape.
It's good, because it's the wildest story he's ever heard, and he's a man who spent several millennia in a ring. And yet -
Izunia. Ardyn Izunia. It's so hard not to flinch.]
Mmm.
[At first the hum almost seems like all the answer she might get, but - ]
I can't say that makes the most sense out of anything I've ever heard, but I do recall a few ideas thrown around by those who cared deeply for physics - 'what if every choice we make creates a new timeline,' that sort of thing. Did you ever find out why he used the other name?
[It's thrown out so casually that she probably won't even know that it's the most burning question he's ever had.]
[ She opens her mouth. Closes it again. And... really, that's an answer all by itself, isn't it? As is the way her lips purse and the way her gaze drifts to look at absolutely anything else rather than risk catching his gaze. She knows why -- of course she knows why. He used it because of spite and hurt and bitterness and because of black and bile running through his veins instead of blood. But god. She can't just go and say that, can she? Even if she can't just lie. ]
He said... [ how to explain this without the words Starscourge, exile, execution coming up? A fun game for the entire family. ] He said it was something to do with his brother. He needed a name to use and it... it might as well have been Izunia's.
[ it's a gross oversimplification but it's close enough to the truth.
She swallows, not sure if she has the right to be asking him anything right now but... she has to know. ]
When I saw you on the beach and called you Izunia-san... you said "Izunia is a dead man". What... what happened to him, exactly?
[It might as well have been, indeed. 'Ardyn' twirls a last piece of firewood - a twig, really - back and forth between his first two fingers in a nervous gesture that probably doesn't match up at all to the Ardyn Yuuri knows.
A gross oversimplification, maybe. But the heart of it isn't invisible.
Fair is fair, isn't it, brother?]
Izunia... made a huge mistake, and gave everything he had trying to atone for it. To the very end of his life.
[She isn't the only one who can give compellingly few details. Really, he's as much a politician as any other Lucis Caelum, save perhaps Noctis.]
My brother was the dearest thing to me in the world. That much, I hope, is in common with the Ardyn you know.
[ ... Now that's interesting. A mistake she would've simply nodded along with but atonement is what makes her start to wonder if somewhere, there's some wires crossed. She'd thought it a simple case of irony and the universe playing a cruel prank. A world in which Ardyn gets to be the king with his name immortalized and all he gives in exchange is his younger brother, to the Starscourge. But if that really was the case -- if Izunia Lucis Caelum was the prince lost to time to become the Accursed Immortal then how could he have died to atone for it?
Something is strange here. Something is off and wrong and Yuuri doesn't know enough to put a finger on just what. So instead she nods, trying to work out what question to ask to finally start putting this puzzle together. ]
... it is. I know he loved Izunia very much.
[ Past tense. She has no idea what feeling is left behind now, after two thousand years of stewing on a betrayal. But the Ardyn she knows... she likes to think that there's a ghost of the feeling there, at the very least. ]
I'm sorry. For all this, I mean, I'm a stranger, aren't I? I haven't even introduced myself and here I am, talking like I know so much about you. [ she gives him a tired, tired smile. ] I'm Yuuri Wakasa. If... if there's anything else you need to ask then please do. I'll do my best to answer.
Please, don't be concerned over it. It's rare these days that I meet anyone who even knows the name - I should be the one apologizing, for I nearly pulled a blade on you.
[And who can blame him, considering that he got the shock of several afterlives in that moment? He's still - the part of him that isn't a politician playing a role that's become second nature is still reeling.
There was supposed to be nothing left. Nothing but a daemon - that's what he told himself, trying fruitlessly to put the thing with his brother's face and voice down, even knowing that it would do little good. Ring wrapped round his finger, a contract with the crystal itself - dooming himself and so many descendants in the hopes of someday freeing his brother from that hell.
The ring is gone, now.]
Was he well, the Ardyn you knew?
[It is only the tip of the iceberg of the questions he wants to ask, but he can't let any of that traitorous desperation show. Can't ask is he here, because he knows damn well that if he lets himself - if the answer is yes -
[ Again, it's her expression that answers the question first before Yuuri herself does. Her frown softens a little and becomes just the faintest hint of a smile. Was he well, he asks and she thinks of the wonderful, idiot man she called her father surrounded by the family who'd decided they wanted him and weren't going to take no for an answer.
Was he well? ]
He was. The last I saw of him before I came here, he was happy. In fact, I, um--
[ She laughs and there's a little more warmth to it now, even under the embarrassment. ]
When I saw you on the beach, I was almost hoping that's who you were. It's selfish of me to want that, I know -- he's better off at home with everyone else, where he belongs but I... I miss him. I miss all of them very much.
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makes up some jamjar bullshit
(And it's certainly nothing to do with wanting to see familiar faces. Nothing to do with still hoping against hope that after being so thoroughly disappointed on her arrival. Nothing whatsoever.)
They're arriving on the beach this month, it seems, washing up like driftwood and she's just glad there don't seem to be any injuries -- there's only so much patching up they can do with such rudimentary medical supplies. She's mulling over their luck that this set of arrivals seem to be happening with such little fanfare and
then
she sees a sodden but heart-stoppingly familiar mop of black and silver and wine-red in the sand, just like all the other newcomers and she comes to a sharp halt. For a split second she wonders if maybe it's just the Ardyn she knows is already here, but why would he be here on the beach with all the newcomers? But why would there be another Ardyn here when the Storyteller had already pulled one in, unless he was different enough to provide the Storyteller with new tales, unless, unless, unless...
Her heart's in her throat when she approaches, her steps slow and cautious. Yuuri knows well by now that she can't just charge in blindly and expect any less than a disaster. So it's with that thought in mind that she makes her way over to him, appreciating more than anyone the irony of the fact that she looks like she's dressed head to toe in Lucian fashion but totally, blissfully ignorant of the irony that comes with her addressing him as - ]
... Izunia-san? Um... that is you, isn't it?
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But then he hears the girl's voice, and he looks up -
and then he realizes
she called him Izunia.
Thanks, Yuuri, there is now a giant beanpole having a complete heart attack at the sight of you. His eyes are a natural hazel instead of Ardyn's uncanny yellow, and the clothes are in a bit better repair - true black instead of faded grey, a navy swirl of a scarf instead of an orange one - but still the same style, and -
And no one should know him to be Izunia. No one save Gilgamesh, and the girl is very clearly not
hisArdyn'stheirthe Shield of the King.Izunia's reaction is to freeze. But he's trained himself well, and Ardyn's reaction - Ardyn would get angry. So he does.]
How do you know that name?
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Right. Okay. Neither of the Ardyns she knows. ]
I-- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-- [ come on, Yuuri. Calm down. ] I just-- I thought you were someone I knew. B--but that's obviously not the case, so...
[ well it's technically not a lie but when she's saying it so nervously, it sure sounds like one ]
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[He is certainly distressing her and he'll probably feel bad about it later, but right now - Right now Izunia is fucking panicking under the layers of scarves and temper he wears as 'Ardyn.' Nothing could have prepared him for this.
At least he's not pulling a weapon on her?]
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And what good would dancing around the truth do, regardless?
She takes a steadying breath, swallows hard and pulls herself to her full height. It's hardly anything compared to Ardyn, of course, but it makes her feel just a little better. ]
It's your name, isn't it? You told it me yourself. Not-- not the you I'm talking to now but...
[ she sighs and scrapes her hair back from her face with her hands. ]
It's... it's a very long story.
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[Oh god what the hell is going on? He wouldn't have - there's no reason why he would ever - ]
I haven't used that name in years. It's... Izunia is a dead man.
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Yuuri's arms are folded across her chest but then one hand steals up absently to touch her left shoulder where under the white cloth of her coat there's black ink on her skin, a reminder, a promise to the man she'd decided was good enough to be her king. ]
... Then... are you going by a different name now?
[ her fingers dig into the fabric and squeeze. ]
Tenmyouji-san, maybe?
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She's as unsettled as he is, though. It's realizing that that gets Izunia to finally take a breath, release the readiness to pull a weapon from the Armiger, and slide into the healer-king persona instead.]
That... name isn't familiar to me, no.
[Even the sounds of it aren't familiar. It's certainly no name of Solheim, or baby kingdom Lucis, still rising from the ashes.
And yet he finds himself strangely reluctant to tell her to call him Ardyn.]
Perhaps you'd best start from the beginning.
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She tries to hide her disappointment but it's clear as day in the way her shoulders droop and her mouth sets into a frown. Lesson learned, then, Enso. Getting your hopes up is stupid. She's gotten the message loud and clear.
She sighs and gives him a weary smile. ]
It's... Well, it's a very long story. I'm not sure where I should even start at all but...
[ Well. The truth would be a good idea, perhaps. ]
Do you have any idea where you are right now? Or how you got here?
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I haven't the foggiest, actually.
[He makes a show of glancing around, and then shrugs. Nope, nothing familiar here.]
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[ She gives him another one of those hasty smiles and then turns to look over her shoulder, considering just what she should do with him. They can't just stand here on the beach forever but she's a little worried that if she starts leading him back to the huts, they might run into someone who already knows him. Or even worse, the Ardyn who's already here. She absolutely doesn't want that happening until both of them have been prepared. ]
Well... before anything, I think it might be a good idea to get off this beach. If you don't mind following me, I can get you to somewhere there'll be fire and something to eat?
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Patience, Izunia, he has to remind himself. Be the king and consider everything - not the idiot jumping into things and hurting people.
It's a lecture he's given himself many times over the years.]
You needn't trouble yourself on my account, but if you insist.
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[ Making herself feel useful is about all that's keeping her sane on this damn island, after all.
She takes a half step back and then tilts her head, gesturing for him to follow her up the length of the beach. ]
If you're good to walk, then...?
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[He'll only pause to shake some of the sand out of his coat before following. Ugh, but Ardyn's favored dress shoes are a pain on sand. It's such a little thing, and yet, with his guard up and the feeling of needing to completely focus to pull off the ruse, instead of running it automatically the way he did for years and years, it weighs on his mind.]
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Please, just sit down wherever you like -- I'm sorry it's such a mess. I'll start a fire going in just a second.
[ She's picking out some firewood as she says this and she has her back to him. All the better to not have to look at him when she speaks up. ]
If you say your name isn't Izunia, then... you must be Ardyn Lucis Caelum. Is that right?
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That's right. And no need to apologize, I've stayed in far worse conditions.
[When she turns around, he's watching her with a face full of carefully cautious curiosity, seated casually on one of the blankets near the fire pit, his feet just off it to keep the sand at a minimum.]
But can you forgive me for being intensely curious as to how you would know that in the first place?
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[ Not that she's looking forward to answering any. She comes back to the fire pit with some decent kindling and starts arranging everything, more for an excuse to keep her eyes on her work than on him. ]
It's... complicated. I know I've been dancing around it a lot but it's complicated and it's awkward and I-- [ a high-pitched, slightly nervous laugh. ] I'm not even sure how much of it you're going to believe.
But you understand that where we are right now... it's not Lucis or wherever you were before, right? It's a completely different world and we've all been pulled into it one by one.
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[Also, for all that Ardyn was the hardcore traveller, Izunia has probably quite a bit more experience with campfires than she does. He won't push if she wards him off, but otherwise he assembles the whole thing quite efficiently...
And with a spark of magic to light it, because if she knows him by name, or his brother's name, or whichever, then he probably doesn't have to be worried about hiding that.]
Just breathe. I swear to withhold any disbelief until you've finished.
[Gentle, kind, perhaps even warm, even though under the surface the pace at which the answers come is strangling him.]
And yes. I figure I ought know the realm well enough by now, after travelling it for so long. Not to mention where I last remember being...
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Not the person she knows so well. Come on, Yuuri, surely it takes a little more than this to rattle you? ]
Well. This isn't the only place like this -- not the only place that pulls people in, I mean. I don't know how common it is but it's happened to me and a group of people in a world before I was brought here. Am I making sense? I was pulled from the world I was born in, to a different one before coming here. And, um...
[ God. She can't recount the whole Airlocked story at him because frankly, who needs that baggage laid on them from a stranger? It feels like a lie not to, if only by omission, but Yuuri isn't stupid enough to march out the whole... everything their stay on the Fantasy Sweet turned out to be. Especially if what she's starting to suspect turns out to be true. ]
One of the people there with us was... well, the people who'd set this whole thing up told us his name was Ardyn Izunia. But when he introduced himself, he said he was Ardyn Lucis Caelum.
no subject
After so long, he doesn't have to second-guess himself about the precise amount of sweeping and loose he should be, but it's still preferable to have something to do with his hands, like carefully piling firewood into exactly the proper shape.
It's good, because it's the wildest story he's ever heard, and he's a man who spent several millennia in a ring. And yet -
Izunia. Ardyn Izunia. It's so hard not to flinch.]
Mmm.
[At first the hum almost seems like all the answer she might get, but - ]
I can't say that makes the most sense out of anything I've ever heard, but I do recall a few ideas thrown around by those who cared deeply for physics - 'what if every choice we make creates a new timeline,' that sort of thing. Did you ever find out why he used the other name?
[It's thrown out so casually that she probably won't even know that it's the most burning question he's ever had.]
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He said... [ how to explain this without the words Starscourge, exile, execution coming up? A fun game for the entire family. ] He said it was something to do with his brother. He needed a name to use and it... it might as well have been Izunia's.
[ it's a gross oversimplification but it's close enough to the truth.
She swallows, not sure if she has the right to be asking him anything right now but... she has to know. ]
When I saw you on the beach and called you Izunia-san... you said "Izunia is a dead man". What... what happened to him, exactly?
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A gross oversimplification, maybe. But the heart of it isn't invisible.
Fair is fair, isn't it, brother?]
Izunia... made a huge mistake, and gave everything he had trying to atone for it. To the very end of his life.
[She isn't the only one who can give compellingly few details. Really, he's as much a politician as any other Lucis Caelum, save perhaps Noctis.]
My brother was the dearest thing to me in the world. That much, I hope, is in common with the Ardyn you know.
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Something is strange here. Something is off and wrong and Yuuri doesn't know enough to put a finger on just what. So instead she nods, trying to work out what question to ask to finally start putting this puzzle together. ]
... it is. I know he loved Izunia very much.
[ Past tense. She has no idea what feeling is left behind now, after two thousand years of stewing on a betrayal. But the Ardyn she knows... she likes to think that there's a ghost of the feeling there, at the very least. ]
I'm sorry. For all this, I mean, I'm a stranger, aren't I? I haven't even introduced myself and here I am, talking like I know so much about you. [ she gives him a tired, tired smile. ] I'm Yuuri Wakasa. If... if there's anything else you need to ask then please do. I'll do my best to answer.
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[And who can blame him, considering that he got the shock of several afterlives in that moment? He's still - the part of him that isn't a politician playing a role that's become second nature is still reeling.
There was supposed to be nothing left. Nothing but a daemon - that's what he told himself, trying fruitlessly to put the thing with his brother's face and voice down, even knowing that it would do little good. Ring wrapped round his finger, a contract with the crystal itself - dooming himself and so many descendants in the hopes of someday freeing his brother from that hell.
The ring is gone, now.]
Was he well, the Ardyn you knew?
[It is only the tip of the iceberg of the questions he wants to ask, but he can't let any of that traitorous desperation show. Can't ask is he here, because he knows damn well that if he lets himself - if the answer is yes -
He'll be Izunia again, irrevocably.]
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Was he well? ]
He was. The last I saw of him before I came here, he was happy. In fact, I, um--
[ She laughs and there's a little more warmth to it now, even under the embarrassment. ]
When I saw you on the beach, I was almost hoping that's who you were. It's selfish of me to want that, I know -- he's better off at home with everyone else, where he belongs but I... I miss him. I miss all of them very much.
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yuuri are you sending him straight into ardyn's lap right now
she's doing her best you be nice to her
god NAO GET IN HERE
Re: god NAO GET IN HERE
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