founderinglight: (Default)
Izunia Lucis Caelum ([personal profile] founderinglight) wrote in [community profile] lazybox2017-12-12 05:11 pm

izunia lucis callout

you will pry twinzunia from my cold dead hands let's do this
serrata: (All of your friends they'd try to kill u)

[personal profile] serrata 2017-12-16 07:32 pm (UTC)(link)
[ And there's the confusion again. Because this is starting to sound like the story she knows but it doesn't make sense. It can't make sense if that all still happened but Ardyn is here to tell the story.

... unless. Not unless... ]


But it didn't work, did it? None of it did. He couldn't be killed anymore because they wouldn't just let him die.

[ "Izunia is a dead man". A dead man who made a terrible, terrible mistake, who spent the rest of his life miserably trying to atone for it. ]

And when he wouldn't die... what did they do with him then?
serrata: (y391)

[personal profile] serrata 2017-12-16 08:04 pm (UTC)(link)
[ When Ardyn had talked of his brother, Yuuri had always pictured something like -- something a little more like Noctis. Maybe his face would've been more severe, his hair messier and that same ridiculous shade of purple or red or whatever it felt like being when the light hit it. Close enough to tell they were brothers, but not exactly a mirror image.

Maybe that's why it's taken her so long. Because if she'd known what face to look for, the pieces would've fallen into places more gradually but far quicker. Now, though, it all comes clattering together in one great rush.

She's a fool. It had never entered into her mind that he would arrive here -- he occupies the same space of her mind that Megu-nee does. Gone, not forgotten, but still gone and forever out of reach and there's nothing any of them can do about it. But what the hell does a world like this care for people who are supposed to be dead and gone?

And he is dead and gone. He has been for nearly two thousand years, not by any plague or scourge but by the simple passage of time, because this man isn't the Accursed Immortal he's-- ]


... Izunia.

[ -- Lucis Caelum. ]

You're Izunia, aren't you?
serrata: (And I’d keep my head)

[personal profile] serrata 2017-12-16 08:33 pm (UTC)(link)
[ She'd made idle jokes to Ardyn, to the others, about what she'd do if she ever came face to face with any of the troublemakers from their worlds. She'd even said to Ardyn, hadn't she, with a grin on her face that she'd have words with Izunia should he ever be misfortunate enough to meet her. And now he's actually here, she doesn't know what to say. ]

... I... I don't...

[ I don't understand, she wants to say because there's so much here that makes no sense. He'd kept up the act this entire time and she'd been so fooled. They'd been happy to banish and kill him without any sort of cover up in the history she knows so why all the pretense, here?

And then under all the confusion and all the scattering of her thoughts, something surfaces and it's so bitter and angry that she can't even filter it before it comes out of her mouth. ]


Everything-- you already took everything else-- so you took his name, too?
serrata: (r015)

[personal profile] serrata 2017-12-16 09:38 pm (UTC)(link)
[ She can't decide which is worse. The idea of him being forgotten and just thrown away like trash of course is awful. But there's something almost perverse about the idea of Izunia picking his name off his corpse like a vulture picking carrion and living that lie for the rest of his life. There would be children, she realizes with a start, who would grow up thinking that their father was Ardyn Lucis Caelum and would never have reason to believe that the man they loved was a liar.

She feels sick. ]


Don't you dare talk about what he deserved. As if you have any right--!

[ She's so angry that she's blindsided by it almost and she has to scramble to her feet so she can do something. She's filled with directionless fury and it has nowhere to go because as angry as she is, the logical part of her knows she can't put all the blame on Izunia, as convenient a scapegoat he is.

But it certainly feels nice to have a target for once. ]


So you lied for the rest of your life -- pretending you were him, like he could be replaced that easily! All the while, he was rotting away on that island and-- and you--

[ Anger renders her, for a moment at least, speechless. ]
serrata: (06 - kEebaQh)

[personal profile] serrata 2017-12-16 11:43 pm (UTC)(link)
You could've told them the truth!

[ It isn't Izunia's fault. If it's anyone's fault it's the Astrals, all the gods who'd decided that the lives lost on the way to their Chosen King were a price worth paying. But she's been so helplessly angry for so long about all of it -- about Airlocked, and the Nonary Games and the Freelancer Project and Bahamut that it feels good to finally have something to vent at. ]

Don't you think if he deserved anything, he deserved that much? You talk about salvation but how was he supposed to be saved if no one even knew what was wrong?!

[ She's trying so hard to shut herself up and calm herself down but she can't. She knows how overblown and overwrought her anger must seem but -- well. If there's anything this family has in abundance it's spite and anger, isn't it? ]
serrata: (I walked away from the grave)

[personal profile] serrata 2017-12-17 12:27 am (UTC)(link)
[ Bahamut. It all comes back to Bahamut, doesn't it?

Yuuri takes in a long slow breath and makes herself hold it, just long enough to calm herself down. There's nothing to be accomplished by yelling at a tired, sad old man who already knows the mistakes he's made. And besides that it's... surprisingly hard to keep up her anger when he looks so much like Ardyn. It feels like a cheap shot, but for all the things she can blame Izunia Lucis Caelum for, resemblance to his own twin is hardly one of them.

She sighs, just as long and slow as her breath in and her hands finally unclench. ]


... we're. We're doing what we can for him. We can't fix any of it or changed what happened but I...

[ She swallows hard and then pulls herself up to her full height, almost a little defiantly. ]

He's happy. It isn't perfect but... he had a home and a family and he's happy. I can promise you that much.
serrata: (01 - L1I8oCo)

[personal profile] serrata 2017-12-17 12:59 am (UTC)(link)
... everything, really? Not that I won't, I just. Um.

[ She gives him a strained sort of smile that just screams "I've seen some shit" ]

It's a very long story and it's... well, let's just say the parts I already told you are basically the tip of the iceberg.
serrata: (frown)

[personal profile] serrata 2017-12-17 04:30 pm (UTC)(link)
[ ... Ah, right, yes. It's probably better if she doesn't loom over him like that. With another of those sighs, Yuuri settles herself down next to the fire. She doesn't start speaking straight away -- she's fidgeting with the chain around her neck and the little black and white clover charm hanging from it, rolling it gently through her fingers like a worry stone. ]

... I said before that we met -- all of us back home -- we met when we woke up after being taken from the worlds where we belonged. We'd been brought to somewhere none of us recognized for some kind of show. To start with, there was twenty of us and--

[ She has to catch herself for a second because she hasn't actually called him Ardyn in so long that it's not the name she reaches for first. But that would raise even more questions than she's prepared to answer right now she she gives herself a moment to verbally backspace. ]

... and one of the people with us was Ardyn. And as far as he remembered... um, I think it was before everything had happened. He knew about the Starscourge but for him... it hadn't gotten as bad as it did. Not as far as he remembered.

That's how it was for all of us. We all woke up there with memories missing. I still don't know why or what the point of it was but what matters is that even though they'd brought him after you-- [ another pause. another verbal backspace. ] ... so long after it all happened, as far as he remembered he was still Ardyn Lucis Caelum.

I--is this all making sense so far...?
serrata: (r073)

[personal profile] serrata 2017-12-17 08:00 pm (UTC)(link)
[ She swallows hard and nods. She doesn't know how much Izunia knows of what had become of his brother after their attempts to put him down and she doesn't have the context to be able to give him the full picture of what had happened to Lucis. But she has to try, at least. ]

When we started remembering things, most of it was jumbled and out of order. So when he started remembering some of the things he'd done to people I don't think he understood why. When we talked about it a little into the game I remember he said... he said he was afraid of what it meant he'd turned into.

[ Because he didn't know who or what Ardyn Izunia was. Not so long as he still had reason to believe he was Ardyn Lucis Caelum. ]

Especially since at the time they took him he was still... he still had that inside of him. And he didn't even know. He had to work it out for himself.
serrata: (26 - lwabRO2)

[personal profile] serrata 2017-12-17 08:22 pm (UTC)(link)
... he remembered those first, I think. He remembered doing all that before he remembered the Starscourge and what you-- ... What happened because of it.

[ she swallows and wets her lips even though her mouth is suddenly dry. ]

But we did everything we could. We were so scared we'd lose him but we'd promised -- all of us had promised each other we'd stay together and that we'd have each others backs. And even with everything he'd done, none of us could just turn on him, after everything he'd done for us and everything we'd all been through together.

[ ... Ah. That's the part she's left out, isn't it? ]

Because it... It wasn't just playing with our memories and kidnapping us. Part of the show was... the whole point was seeing what it would take for us to kill each other. They'd trapped us and every week they'd give us things to try and motivate us into doing it like... Like money. Or changing the past or just being able to escape.

All we had to do was kill someone in there and get away with it.
serrata: (r069)

[personal profile] serrata 2017-12-17 09:31 pm (UTC)(link)
You'd be surprised.

[ She gives him a tired little smile -- the kind of face you make when you don't really want to be smiling, but letting how you really feel show on your face might just be your undoing. ]

We lost so many people but hardly any of it was on purpose. None of us wanted to hurt anyone there or be hurt. But it just kept going and going and--

[ She stops, has to catch her breath and for a minute she just stares into the fire like she's not sure what else to say. She's never been able to talk about Airlocked and everything it'd been with someone who didn't at least have some level of understanding. There's so much she isn't saying and so much she just can't explain to him. But letting out any of it at all feels cathartic, in the same way ripping off a bandaid does. ]

... and in the end, when we were all falling apart, I think it was a little too much for him, as well. He was the one holding us all together but he was so close to falling apart himself. And he got desperate enough, I think, to go to the people running it all. And I don't know how or why but... they took it from him. The Starscourge, I mean. And now he's just as human as any of us.
serrata: (but I don't have the heart to let go)

[personal profile] serrata 2017-12-17 09:56 pm (UTC)(link)
... ah.

[ In hindsight, really, she should've expected this. Maybe she should've given him a little more warning but... well, how do you prepared someone for a bombshell like that?

She hasn't got a tissue or a handkerchief or anything she can offer him so she sits there awkwardly for a moment, unsure of herself before she remembers -- the blankets, you idiot. There's one on her battered little sofa that's relatively clean so she hastens to her feet, grabs it and them makes her way over to his side. It makes her stomach twist a little to see him weeping so openly but she doesn't know what else to do other than offer him the blanket, to wipe or cover his face or anything. She's floundering a bit. ]


Here. I'm... I'm sorry. [ for what, she's not sure, but it feels like the right thing to say. ]

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