izunia lucis callout

[founderinglight]

you will pry twinzunia from my cold dead hands let's do this

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[founderinglight]

'Ardyn' is actually still common enough - 'Izunia,' on the other hand, is from our grandmother's tongue, spoken in the region that would become Tenebrae, and that language virtually died out long before Noctis was born.

[He takes the notebook and taps the pen against the edge of it.]

Heavens and the earth - and so the whole of existence, really. No wonder you're disappointed with your first name.

[After a moment, he takes up the pen to write Ardyn's first name in an elegant, archaic version of Eos' script, followed by the three characters Junpei wrote.]

To burn the whole of existence, or to have passion for the whole of existence, depending on one's translation. Both are fitting.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Oh, no, don't get me wrong. My first name's fine. It's the last name that's always been a pain in my ass. 'Sky sun moon temple,' when most Japanese surnames are more like 'inside a rice paddy' or 'little forest'?

[He snorts and returns to his brandy.]

As you can imagine, I was super popular in school and wasn't considered a weirdo at all. So many friends. You don't even know.

[founderinglight]

[Okay, congrats, you made him chuckle a little.]

As a Lucis Caelum, I don't think I have any room to talk on that front. I somehow feel that our family was considered strange even before the Draconian touched our line and gave us magic. And afterwards, of course, we would forever be strange even to our own people.

[misanthropicprinciple]

You were just ahead of your time. All the black and skulls, you would've fit right in with the high schoolers of my parents' generation.

[You know, if you want to feel old.]

[founderinglight]

Well, considering exactly how you and my brother seem to have adopted each other...

[Man you haven't even seen anything, Junpei. Why couldn't the dream dump you in the modern Insomnia?]

Again, we were hardly ahead of our time. We were the establishing influence.

... Though for my peace of mind, if he kept the spats, do not tell me.

[misanthropicprinciple]

[Junpei says not a word, just drinks with a smirk.]

[founderinglight]

[SIGH.]

I adore Ardyn relentlessly but he is an absolute disaster in completely Starscourge-unrelated ways.

[Junpei you're his favorite now.]

[misanthropicprinciple]

Them's the facts. I mean, what kind of weirdo insists on adopting a guy who does, actually, you know, have decent parents? Time displacement notwithstanding.

[A disaster weirdo is what he's saying.]

[founderinglight]

One desperately seeking a family of his own again, in all likelihood.

[You tries to be flippant but got a real answer, Junpei, no wonder Ardyn thinks he has no sense of humor.]

Time displacement?

[misanthropicprinciple]

[Hey, that's fine, you know what Junpei does with real answers and serious questions? He ups the flippancy. There must be balance in the Force.]

Oh, we met while kidnapped interdimensionally through space and time to some galaxy roughly five forty-five hundred years in my future. I don't even know what it'd work out to for you guys from Eos.

[founderinglight]

...Possibly nothing at all, if it was in your universe. You might be dividing by zero to try to manage time across realities.

[misanthropicprinciple]

I don't think it's in my universe exactly. Just a handful fewer timelines removed from my history than yours, since Earth is still definitely a thing there and Eos is probably considered intellectual property of InterGal 7.

[founderinglight]

Oh no, surely not. Copyright law.

[He says it so tonelessly it's hard to tell if that's a joke or if he legitimately does hate copyright law.]

What's your Earth like, then?

[misanthropicprinciple]

Not that different from what Eos is like around Noct and that blond kid's time, from what I can tell. Except we don't have daemons, magic, or chocobos, and most of our wildlife isn't big enough to eat us. And gods just stay inside religion where they belong.

[founderinglight]

...That sounds almost boring.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Don't worry, we still fight monsters. They just happen to be the human kind.

[founderinglight]

[Bitter snort. Oh, he's all too familiar with that kind.]

A world where my only useful skill is politics somehow seems even more depressing, put like that.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Well, are you good at escape rooms? Or math? If not, killing people is still pretty marketable, I don't think Lucians ever have to worry about that job market drying up.

[founderinglight]

[Junpei might be surprised at how he lights up.]

Oh, I'm very good at math.

[Better than his player, actually, who stalled out at calculus.]

Before... everything, I expected to wind up in magitek research somewhere. The theory side, not the engine building side like Ardyn always preferred.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Theory? Ew.

[Talk about boring, geez. Junpei snorts and raises the brandy.]

Okay, then I guess maybe you'd have had a shot at getting thrown into a death game with the esper kids in case they don't have the STEM background to solve time travel before incineration. Exciting enough for you?

[founderinglight]

When the knowledge of the theory comes through in the application of magical explosions, I imagine you'd enjoy it a little more.

[He knows physics, therefore he's good at warping and big booms.]

...Exciting, and yet I feel the need to express that there is something deeply fucking wrong with it.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Hey, congrats, you pass the 'having a vague sense of common human decency' test! Not everyone does.

[But it's not like he's bitter or anything. Definitely not why he takes another drink.]

[founderinglight]

[Honestly? No wonder he drinks. Izunia considers his soda briefly before flipping the bottle into the Armiger and pulling out a hard cider instead.

What's he even supposed to say to that?]

...You certainly fit in fine with this family, if you're used to dealing with that.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Yeah, counting the non-psychic-related televised murder party I was in with Ardyn, I've been in... three? Yeah, three of these life-or-death games.

[And a fourth on the horizon. And a fifth in an alternate future.]

But who's counting?

[founderinglight]

[No one has explained jack or shit to this version of Izunia and honestly Junpei's version will probably be more coherent anyway.]

I feel as though I don't wish to know, and yet I have to ask anyway.