lazybox | [no one gets (air)left behind]

[no one gets (air)left behind]

[The police have taken your Mastermind, and the spaceport is yours, it seems, for the time being, without any further interruptions.

Except...

Why is there another ship parked at the door? (The door, it should be noted, furthest from the police cruiser.)

There's one more person who intends to put on an appearance today, it seems.

-> Investigate?]

[[Welcome to the Airleft Bonus Continuity CMO and catchall post! For those who aren't familiar, the TLDR of Airleft is "Airlocked, but a bit to the left." The short version is that this one time, at Space Mall, Church and Ardyn ran into someone very familiar... Running basically the shittier version of Armigod. Wanna meet space dad's actual bro? Now's your chance.]]

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But I wasn’t. [He kept right on clinging to Church, at this point as much for Izunia’s sake as his own.

Why should I—why should we trust you, after what you did?

...In my heart, you were.

[And that's too tired to be anything but the truth.]

I can't make my words reach any further now than I did before. I love you, I have always loved you, I will burn for you at a word, but I have nothing more I can give.

You tortured me, Izunia. [He broke away from Church to glare at his brother, hand still gripping his fiance's tightly.]

Drowning, burning, crucifixion, firing squad, hanging, decapitation, did you think I forgot? You tortured me and then when you grew tired of trying to kill me you left me to rot on Angelgard for eternity.

And now you say you love me. You dare insist that...that you...

[He bit his lower lip hard, sight blurred by tears of either anguish or rage.]

What do you want from me? Forgiveness? An apology for so inconveniencing you and your bloodline?

Of course you can't forget. I can't forget.

[One thing you have to acknowledge, Ardyn - at least he never averted his eyes, unlike some of the murderers here.]

What I want...

[He reaches up and touches the crow on the side of his neck. Fifteen for my heart's last desire - ]

...Is for you to use the dawn you've found to pull back that curtain of night and see. To look upon things in the sun's light and understand that I never wanted any of this - not the throne, not the kingdom, and never to hurt you.

[ - A new day's dawn, reborn in fire.]

Only to stand by your side.

I never wanted this either! I never wanted the throne, the Crystal, I never wanted to turn into that thing--! I just-...I just...

[His voice faltered and cracked, Ardyn letting go of Church's hand to fall back against the wall and sink to the floor.]

...I just wanted to help. I wanted to save the family I loved more than life itself, and you killed me for it.

[A pause, and then -

Izunia's head tips forward, and his shoulders shake, with silent laughter - silent hysterics.]

Ardyn - Ardyn, I -

You forgot, didn't you? All these centuries, my very worst memory, and you -

[He wipes at his eyes, and finally lifts his head to look Ardyn in the eye.]

I didn't kill you for anything. The first time - the one that made you into that... It was an accident, Ardyn.

...wh...what?

[Ardyn swallowed hard and forced himself to stand, yellow eyes widened by distrust and confusion. He was far from hiding behind Church especially for how much taller he was, but he still gripped his fiance's sleeve like it was the sole anchor to sanity.]

Explain yourself. You were sick, and I-... [He shook his head, free hand raking through his hair.] ...I can't...I can't remember, there was a blade and all that noise in my head and then I was just dying over and over and over--

Late-stage Scourge infection can cause fever dreams and delusions, remember?

[He lifts a hand to his hair, running fingertips through what remains in a gesture that's inherited from Ardyn himself.]

I was... You were probably almost too late, when you arrived. I was out of it, unconscious and trapped in those horrible dreams. When you healed me, I - my body moved before my mind caught up to the fact that I wasn't there anymore.

[How many horrible accidents has Ardyn seen over all these weeks, months, especially from those with even the slightest bit of supernatural powers losing control of them?]

So I was half-panicked and suddenly I could move again, and you were still standing over me, and I just... struck at what I thought was a threat. And my blade went straight through you.

[Don't worry boo. Shield of the King is here for all the standing in front of and protecting. Be glad he doesn't have the first clue how to use any of this magic yet.]

What the fuck is he talking about? Hey, what the fuck are you talking about?

...The last person I ever healed...was my brother.

[Ardyn wasn't looking at either of them now, blankly fixated on some point past Izunia.]

He was sick--nearly dying, by the time I got to him. So I took the infection just as I had with with everyone else, and...I-I don't know, I remember being stabbed and the next thing I knew I was being executed like everyone thought I was some kind of daemon.

You... stumbled backwards from the force of the strike with my blade still in you, and then your face started to -

[He cuts himself off, burying his face in his hands again. We all know what the fuckface looks like, here, we don't need to go into detail.]

And then you were just - gone, a shape of vanishing black smoke.

[No body discovery for that one.]

What the absolute fuck why did you fucking run your fucking brother the fuck through you fucking animal!

[yeah no he's still got that bottle he's gonna use it someone should maybe get it away from him]

Leonard--

[yeah, he's clinging for both of them now.]

...please. Don't.

[A flinch - and then it's almost like he's realizing Church is even there for the first time. The look he levels at his brother's Shield isn't quite a glare, but there's something unsettlingly angry about it none the less.]

Oh thank you, I wasn't aware. [Angry sarcasm, he can do it with the best of them.] I lost all grip on sanity and have been stewing in my guilt for two thousand years, you think I haven't called myself far worse?

[He strains in Ardyn's grip like a dog straining at his leash.]

Oh, don't get snippy with me when you're the one who fucking up and shanked your brother and then decided, oh, guess I'll fucking murder him some more!

You snap at him and it'll be the last thing you ever say, Izunia.

[But he's still hugging Church tightly.]

Leonard, please. I-...can't tell if he's lying yet. And I need to hear this.

[Slow exhale. Hand in his hair again. He needs to touch something, wishes it could be someone, envies Ardyn having -

anyone at all, really.]

I didn't know what to do. I almost followed you then. Gil stopped me - he's the only other person who ever knew the truth. We didn't know what to do, so - we went to the Crystal.

[He closes his eyes. There's a deep rage in his voice, now, below all the grief, an equal flame to Ardyn's own.]

The Draconian told me... That there was nothing left of you. Probably not those exact words, fucking gods, but that's what I took away from it. That there was only a daemon wearing my brother's skin... And that there was no one who could carry the crown but me.

[It's... pretty disjointed from there.]

Replacing you... was all my idea. Gil wanted nothing to do with it, thought I'd gone mad. He left once things were... as settled as they were going to be, and I never heard from him again. ...In retrospect, he was probably right.

[Definitely right.]

Thirty-six ritual executions... the last desperate prayer of a madman who just wanted his family back, and revenge on the monster that took it away from him, all in one.

...We definitely have to go back to Eos just so we can go fistfight Bahamut. [they can bring Akira, he's used to shooting god in the face]

Why the fuck. do you have. thirty-six. ritual. executions. Is this a fucked up death-worshipping Lucian thing. What the fuck.

Gilgamesh didn't-?

[...didn't betray him. Didn't abandon him. Leaving was the only defiance against the gods he could have done--had they cursed him for it, too? So the pair of them would live eternal, yet ever separated by one side's spite?]

...I don't remember, Leonard. But I suppose...the desire for vengeance is a quality we share.

[He held fast to Church as his only lifeline, gold eyes narrowing and scanning Izunia carefully. Every inch, every microscopically small expression and movement...even if he didn't remember, Ardyn was sure he would know if the other half of his soul was lying.]

He lied to you. He lied to all of us. What you killed...was the last human fragment of your brother. All your efforts did was let hatred and fury take over whatever as still human, and saw all sanity withered away on the Fulgurian's miserable prison.

But why? Why take my name, why not just tell them the truth?

Edited 2018-04-10 22:29 (UTC)

Six gods times six, we did a lot of things in thirty-six in the era when people remembered the gods as more than legends.

[Face in his hands again. Ardyn's close examination will reveal only a man in deep pain.]

I told you. You were the one who should have been king. Even in my madness, I was lucid enough to realize that the name of the Founder King would be remembered forevermore. I wanted that name to be yours.

...Nothing can make up for what you did. What any of you did. Not after all this time.

[The hand that took Church's was shaking, gripping tightly as if he desperately needed the strength to say what came out next.]

I won't forgive you. I can't, even if I wanted to. ...But I don't think you're lying, either.

What I was...what I turned into...needed to be killed. But it wasn't you who had that power.

I couldn't lie to you if I wanted to.

[It would go against the grain of his soul in a way that would make him splinter even further.]

...I didn't think anything of it, when I put the Ring on that first time and started that long chain of kings. I didn't consider - where it would end, beyond putting an end to the nightmare you were.

Not until Aurora.

[Not until he was a father himself did he understand what he was dooming not only himself, but all his line and especially Regis to watch, when Noctis brought the dawn.]

She was the first thing I cared about, after you.

[He's gripping that hand back just as hard. They ground each other, when nothing else feels real.]

Least you cared about something, good fucking job.

...easy, Leonard. I want to hear what he has to say.

Was that her name? Your...daughter? [It was hard--impossible--to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Knowing Izunia had lived his brother's life in however many generations had been spent locked away and forgotten on a miserable island.]

I don't know every single monarch of Lucis by name, I'm afraid. I rather missed a few after you.

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here let's underlatin instead

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cw: past suicidal ideation and also some other fucked up shit

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