Lazy Man's CMO 2018

[bloodand]

 You know what this is, you know what you're here for, etc, etc. Drop who you're looking for in the topheader.

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[scourgingstars]

[Somewhere in the Station, there is the sound of something human-sized hitting the floor, because fuck it, dimensions are in flux.]

[Investigating would yield results in the form of a very familiar violet-haired man in the simple clothes of a prisoner, worn ragged and stained black; lying apparently unconscious, the only sign of motion came from the faint wisps of black miasma trailing from a number of cuts and scrapes that seemed to very slowly be stitching themselves back together.]

[founderinglight]

[You know those days when you wake up just feeling like some bullshit is about to go down? Izunia has that feeling now.

But coming across a maybe conscious Ardyn, blatantly full of the Scourge in a way that the one he normally sees is not? That's above and beyond the bullshit line. About four different impulses wage war within him at the sight - fight or flight at the sight of the twisted healing of the Scourge at work, but also the desire to pull this Ardyn into his arms and never let go, because he's hurting, the knowledge that he might well need to defend himself because he knows when those clothes are from. For a brief, hilarious moment, the only even vaguely helpful suggestion that comes to mind is "get Ardyn, no, the other one."

It's the stupidity of that that finally makes him approach, wary and ready to warp away at an instant. This is his problem, he'll deal with it.

(The only thing stronger than fear is love. Love is the only reason worth doing anything.)

And so Izunia kneels, gently, next to his dark mirror - ]

Ardyn?

[scourgingstars]

[Ardyn made a vague sound of discomfort as he started to stir, wincing instinctively as if he expected pain just by default. But when nothing apparently came...he dazedly opened yellow eyes halfway, struggling to focus in what seemed like blindingly bright lights.]

[founderinglight]

It's okay. Nothing's going to hurt you. I promise.

[Even as he says it, he realizes that if this does go badly, someone needs to know other than whatever unfortunate discovers what's left of his body. As a result, his hand is on his phone, scribbling out a very fast text to the other Ardyn -

Found Scourge you in upper hallway. Think he's from just After. Trying to deal with it. If something happens to me get everyone out.

Is it Friday? With their collective luck it's probably murder game anxiety day.]

[scourgingstars]

[Struggling to prop himself up on shaking and scraped up blackened arms, Ardyn managed to register whose voice he was hearing after a second; immediately he locked up and fell to the ground again, curling in on himself with his hands on his head like he was expecting a sword or worse.]

heheh doctor fetch

[le_mat]

((hey, does Izunia run like, a small private clinic?))

[founderinglight]

((Him sure do, buddy. With occasional calls to the local hospital for all your weird shit needs.))

[le_mat]

[When it came to 'special' visitors, things usually really picked up after night fell. Which might be why Akira came as the sun was dipping low but the sky was still orange, not purple.

The young man's paperwork said he was 20. That might be true, it was hard to tell just from looking at him, his glasses making his face harder to discern exactly. His complaint was he was having problems breathing due to a recent injury. Nothing too odd yet.

Still, the young man has an air of off-ness. Like many Changelings sometimes did. Not exactly the same, but the feeling was close. Only, of course, that there was no sign of inhumanity to his appearance. No horns, no slitted eyes, no bursts of fire. Just a regular boy with an irregular aura and smiling softly at him as he waited in his seat]

Evening, Doctor.

[founderinglight]

[At this point, Izunia is used to weird visitors to his clinic. He's just glad that this one isn't another case of a werewolf calling him up in the middle of the night for traumatic shock and loss of limb, or a vampire who only made the appointment to try and beg emergency blood out of him. (Or get emergency blood supply out of him another way, which plenty had tried. They didn't tend to enjoy the discovery that his 'blood' was actually just enchanted saline solution.)

The doctor who comes through the door seems to be a man in his middle thirties, and there's not much of an aura to him at all. Whatever he is - and outside of Changelings, not many actually know, because passing for human is a Fetch's entire thing, but it's kind of hard to hide that you're the Fetch of the Autumn King - it comes off as pretty unremarkable. He doesn't dress entirely the part of a doctor, either, no white coat in sight - just a professional-looking dress shirt and black slacks, a bit of red hair falling into his face.]

Good evening. Holding up alright?

[That tended to put people at ease more than jumping straight into things.]

[le_mat]

[It is very comfortable, honestly. Akira is impressed.]

I'm managing- a... friend of mine got a little carried away and I honestly haven't been taking care of myself like I should.

... and I've heard you're a good guy to go to when it comes to this kind of thing.

[promittere]

[so which one of us is losing our memories, hmmm]

[comesunset]

[Both is good.]

we love phancast round here

[founderinglight]

[He hadn't voted after all.

Izunia Lucis Caelum had gone into the courtroom with the fire of vengeance in his heart, Lyse, Lyse -

But all of that fire is gone now. He can't burn his children. Lucis does tombs, not funeral pyres.

He hadn't even been able to vote. And now he's here, seated up on top of the closed piano in the music room. There's a bottle in his hand, but he hasn't even opened it yet.

Lyse had taught him her nation's anthem, here, weeks ago when he remembered Insomnia falling apart around him.

He'd told Mukuro, here, of his decision. His choice.

He'd thought she understood. But in the end, he hadn't been able to reach her, not in the depths of the black where her other half chained her down in merely mortal ways.

Champion Despair.]

...Beneath yon burning star there lies
A haven for the bold...

[nor_iron_bars]

[Jail is, as always, herself: she doesn't even wait for Izunia to offer her the bottle, just flops down on top of the piano, leaning against him and reaching for the bottle.]

[But she does raise her voice to sing along with him, as if in payment for the alcohol she's trying to take. Or maybe just because she wants to, too.]

[He's not the only one who misses them.]

"Raise up your hands and voices, let fill your hearts with pride. Above the churning waters, we stand strong and unified..."

[Her voice is low and husky, strong for all the odd rasp added by her gasmask. It's a good voice for melancholy songs. Even if that's not what this anthem was supposed to be, at first.]

[founderinglight]

We blessed few, born from blood,
With tired hands do toil...

[He lets her take the bottle. It's Cheez-Um vodka. Somehow the atrocious ones became a tradition for this.]

...If we add any more weight, we'll break the piano, you know.

[nor_iron_bars]

[Joke's on you, terrible spacefuture- Jail's never had good taste in vodka flavors and she's not about to start now. She takes a generous swig of the godawful booze and tries to remember which line they're on.]

"...to shape this rugged land of ours, and build a home for all."

[She chuckles, wearily but still with that hint of trouble her laugh always has.]

Sounds like an invitation to your boyfriend, to me- if it's gonna go down, you know it'll do it when he's got his ass parked on top of it.

[A shrug, uncaring.]

I say we let the fucker crack- none of us can even play the damn thing, anyway. Gimme a good drum solo any day.

[founderinglight]

It's wood and I don't want to pick splinters out of my backside, do you?

[Atrocious, terrible creature. Family. His family.]

I don't think today could get much worse anyway.

[discutio]

[There was a relatively new arrival in the Station, finding his way around flanked by two canines--one white and the other pale green. He didn't seem to be having too difficult a time of it, though his steps were cautious and slightly behind his two companions.]

[Even if Izunia wouldn't have known him on sight, the Kingsglaive uniform wasn't exactly one easily ignored despite missing the long coat.]

[founderinglight]

[There's no way Izunia wouldn't have known that silhouette immediately. The mark of how he knows Ignis is plain on the other man's face, after all.

But he also knows that the Ignis who was here had no glaive's uniform... And no pets, either. And the age on his face... Yes, certainly a newcomer.

So when the footsteps a bit down the hall pause, as Izunia takes all this in in a heartbeat, the next thing Ignis will hear is the tiny, subtle sound of something being pulled from an Armiger. Izunia remembers well how his last meeting with a newly arrived Ignis went, and he'll be damned if he isn't ready to warp away at the slightest movement.

Really, it's a safe and sane precaution.]

...Hello, Ignis.

[The deep voice is both warier and more familiar than Ardyn's might be, in such a situation.]

If you could refrain from making any identity-assumption based moves for a weapon for the next few minutes, that would be absolutely splendid.

[discutio]

[He certainly recognized the voice if not the particular words or tone, pausing in his steps along with the two creatures at either side.]

...Hello, Ardyn.

[Ignis' own voice wasn't friendly as such--but it was calm, hands loose at his sides with no sign of reaching for a weapon himself. He'd taken to leaving his hair down, hanging in his face and the near-opaque sunglasses he always wore.]

Been some time, hasn't it?

[founderinglight]

...Yes, about that. Wrong twin, and I'd offer a better proof if this hallway was a bit taller except that that is actually a pain in the ass I don't want to go through with today.

[Izunia, for now, stays exactly where he is - which, admittedly, is basically frozen with a metal playing card in his hand ready to throw.]

So for now let's go with What are you willing to give for the power to save the life of your king and jump to the part about 'Izunia Lucis Caelum, pleasure to meet you in the flesh, sorry about your eyes and also every thing my brother did while he was be-Scourged and mad.'

[discutio]

[That earned hardly anything more than a raised eyebrow; the panic was very unlike Ardyn, and the statement was confirmation enough. Still--he looked entirely calm, merely tilting his head in brief confusion.]

...I thought your name was Somnus.

[Still with no tone harsher than 'slightly formal conversation', mind you.]

LA Ignis & Somnus: LA Arrival Scenario (This won't go terribly wrong...)

[shatteredlenses]

[All in all, the greeting new arrivals face this month is a quiet one, one that reflects the quietness of the previous month, perhaps. There are no real hazards, no falling islands, no strange creatures running rampant. Indeed, were it not for the unexpected departures and the equally unexpected return of certain memories to certain people, the month would have been worryingly calm. The calm before a storm.

As Ignis walks along the beach, he's not looking for any of the newcomers. Indeed, he is instead using the quiet and the rhythmic sound of the lapping waves to help him sort out his feelings in regards to those who were lost and those things that were remembered. At his side, Leo acts as his eyes for the things his walking stick may not find. The tigerlily is not so skilled at the job as his firebird had been, but Gladio trained him well and Ignis has every faith Leo will catch on quickly enough to the new job that is required of him. It's the fact Leo is still learning that keeps Ignis from being upset when the tigerlily very deliberately steps in front of him causing him to have to stop suddenly and press a hand to the animal's back to keep himself from stumbling.

Leo rumbles deep in his throat, a sound that is both curious and warning. Ignis hasn't heard anyone approaching, but that doesn't mean someone isn't there. The tigerlily wouldn't have reacted as he did if there wasn't.]

Hello? Who's there?

surely not

[slumberingstars]

[If he could see at the moment, then the sight before Ignis would be an extremely confusing one. The man isn't quite as tall as Ardyn, but distinctly taller than Noctis, and other than the subtle differences in haircut and more significant ones in clothes, that's the only difference.

The voice, on the other hand... Well, if it weren't for the fact that the man speaks nothing like the youngest generation, there's plenty of reason to doubletake.]

Steady, steady... Is your beast tame?

[Because that's clearly what he should be concerned with. Somnus isn't an idiot who can't recognize a companion animal, even an odd-looking one, but he's also not stupid enough to not realize that this critter could easily be as much for protection as guidance.]

[shatteredlenses]

He will do no harm to those who wish no harm upon me.

[It takes Ignis a moment to reply because he is confused. The voice the man before him speaks with is very dear to him and yet, he shows no sign of recognizing him. It takes very little to realize this can't be Noctis then no matter how much Ignis may wish it was. Who is his person sounds so much like his king? Back home, Noctis had a body double for security reasons, but said body double sounded nothing like the person he so looked like.

Eventually, Ignis gives up trying to sort out his confusion and instead focuses his attention outward again. The first thing he notices is that Leo is still growling lowly and hasn't moved from his position standing in front of him.]

I assume you're a new arrival? May I ask your name?