lazybox | [voicetest] it's this guy

[Considering the sort of attire that said heroes are prone to wearing, a man in a black coat with his face fully hooded fits in better among the specters than they do. Of course, he's still far too small, considering the scale of the place.

No, that's not what attracts the attention of the owner of this domain. A unusual aether signature is itself reason enough to investigate, but when you couple that with such a power as comes from beyond the Rift - beyond what even the Ascians consider the edge of the world, of all shards, even the Void - well.

He has not only the inclination to investigate, but a solemn duty, as one of the last remaining caretakers of this world. It's more likely that Xigbar will notice the new arrival, seated on the edge of a too-tall railing above him, from the warping and unwarping of space as the Ascian moves to observe more closely, than from any actual sound of his presence.

As least until he speaks up.]

And what do we have here? This is a private party.

[Were Xigbar anyone else, the warping of space might have gone completely unnoticed. To him, however, it's as good as a sudden flare of light in the darkness, and the fact that he can sense a Heart up at the top of the railing besides only confirms it. (As interesting as the city is, he hasn't failed to notice that the inhabitants - if they can be called that - aren't people in any sense of the term he'd use.)

It's enough, too, that he doesn't startle in the least bit at the sound of a voice. He turns, of course. How could he not, and he cranes his head up to where Emet-Selch is sitting as easily as anything. Not that this offers any more of a sense of who he is, of course. The hood stays firmly where it is, and if anything peeks out from under it it's nothing more than a faint glimmer of yellow from Xigbar's one remaining eye. Surely not enough to base any idea of who he is as a person off of. The easy and almost nonchalant shrug that follows... that says a bit more. Enough for a start of an idea.]

Guess you're just gonna have to consider me a gate-crasher then. Or maybe... an interested party.

[The tone of his voice suggests that he doesn't matter too much one way or the other. Nor does he sound immediately hostile, should it make any particular difference.]

But if it's conversation you're after, it might be a little easier to manage eye-to-eye.

I'm not particularly fond of gate-crashers, so you'd do well to convince me you're the latter.

[I'm sorry, do you want him to get down? Too bad, that's work, and he seems to have no inclination to do so.

You are in his domain uninvited, he's allowed to be rude.]

[He is, it's true, and as unbothered as he seems to be about the fact, he is paying close attention to the sorts of reactions he's getting, both verbally and otherwise. Fortunately he knows better than to demand that Emet-Selch get down. He'll suggest, sure, but he's the one treading in places he might not exactly be welcome, and demands aren't gonna do him any good if the plan is to keep things on relatively amicable terms. (Here mostly read: ones where he's not chased out - or worse - for being a gate-crasher.)

Not that he actually indicates any of that. Instead there's simply a half-nod as if to say 'fair enough.' It'll take a bit of work, perhaps, but he's not completely awful at being convincing even if he hasn't the silver tongue some of the other members of the Organization do.

That said, he's not going to stay on the ground either, and there's a brief pause before he hops neatly up onto a perch of his own. It's a somewhat impressive jump (not least of all because he's chosen a tree branch that had been a good foot and a half above his own head), but still well within the capabilities of, say, the average dragoon, even if he doesn't seem to have any sort of weapon on his person. (It's also still lower than Emet-Selch's own perch, and that is very much a deliberate choice on Xigbar's end.)

He takes a moment to get properly settled in, and only then does he speak up again.]

So. Does this place have a name, or is that the kind of answer I'm gonna have to earn?

[It's not accusatory. Just an unspoken acknowledgement of the fact that he's not really supposed to be here and isn't the intended audience either.]

[If the level of Darkness around the man is any indication, nevermind the size and detail of the creation they're in, worse would certainly be bad.

Emet-Selch watches the man leap to his new perch, keeping his thoughts carefully from his face. Sundered, yes, but differently from the Warrior of Light and the others of the Source. Certainly no shard-dweller - too complete and powerful for that by a mile.

He makes a show of looking bored waiting, but when the question comes, that expression vanishes. To actually be asked - there are some things he will never put on the dismissive face for, even when he has no intention of providing a full answer until the mystery before him has unraveled a little more. A spanner in the works, appearing at what is still a critical time, could easily still ruin everything.]

... It was called Amaurot.

[Show or not, the fact that Emet-Selch seems to be almost bored isn't anything too terribly out of the ordinary. In fact, their surroundings aside, the whole situation isn't too different from any of the discussions he'd had in Where Nothing Gathers, back at home. If maybe with an extra side of potential threat. But that's not really any difference either - threats on his life are nothing new, as depressing as the thought would be if he let himself dwell on it to any significant degree.

(But hey, he's old. He's allowed to have a few less than stellar coping habits, he figures.)

The shift in Emet-Selch's expression, on the other hand, is interesting. Even so that it strikes a chord in him, one that hasn't been touched on in ages and that he'd expected never would be again; while he doesn't exactly sit up straighter something in the way he holds himself shifts.]

Amaurot, hunh? [There's a note of reverence in his voice as he says the name, almost as if he's paying respect to it and to those who are gone besides. There's a pause, too, before, he speaks up again.] It looks like it was quite the place, if this is anything to go on.

Oh, it was. I could only bring so much of its magnificence to life here - my energy is hardly infinite.

[Also, presumably the real Amaurot was beneath the sky, not the sea.

The fact that the stranger is paying the city itself the proper reverence, however, makes its Architect relax, just a bit. If some intruder must see his heart, at least it is someone who respects it.]

Gone more ages than any mortal could comprehend, of course. But so long as even one of us remains, then so does the dream that it might return.

[He's known grand cities beneath the sea, although even the greatest wonders Atlantica has to offer pale in comparison to this. Still, it would be a shame for something like this to be tucked away under the sea the way it is, and if the recreation is accurate - and he has to believe it is - the inhabitants look awfully content to simply walk along the streets, for somewhere that might have been an underwater city to begin with.]

'Long ago, when the world was still new,' hunh?

[There's a distinct sense he's quoting something, with that first bit. Not unkindly, nor ungently, but it has the sound of some fragment of an old story. Something he knows by heart. Perhaps even something that would be almost universally familiar, back wherever he's from, wherever that should happen to be.]

Memory's a powerful thing, though. And as long as that lasts... there's still at least that much left behind, even if it's not always the same.

[To a careful - and sharp-eared - listener, it might just sound like there's a personal sort of familiarity there. Something that flickers into life and then is gone a moment later; something he can't entirely hide, with the conversation taking the turns it is, but also something that he's not used to mentioning even so much as obliquely.]

[The quotation gets something of an amused look, still tinted with melancholy.]

Before that, actually. 'When the world was new' is a time written on top of our ruins.

[From where he came from or not, it seems it is universal enough to strike a familiar chord.]

Powerful as memory is, it is but a pale reflection with only one keeper. The true power of such a thing has always come from being shared, no?

[Perhaps not the intended audience, but this is still a show for someone, not merely his own revisitings of those lost times. Even for him, those have lost details to the washing away of time, leaving only the vague shapes of the sand where once details were as sharp as day.]

It's an imperfect translation.

[Even in his own reality, the difference between the kind of world that people live on and the kind that encompasses all of what there is, worlds included gets a little muddy from time to time.]

Universe might be the better definition. It's just that no one back home really uses it.

{Still, every world, every universe, every reality has to start somewhere. Even if it's on the bones of some othere civilization, and that is absolutely something he knows all to well. Daybreak Town is long gone, and though Scala ad Caelum had never been his home in the same way, it, too, has faded into the darkness. Vanished, save in the memory of a precious few people. Fewer even, now that the old coot has finally gone to his just rewards.]

But you're right. It's hard being the only person keeping that kind of memory alive. Hurts too, sometimes, when you aren't expecting it, or when something jostles those memories into being more awake than you want them to be.

[It's not anything cruel or malicious in his voice. Rather it's understanding and - rare though it is for him - sympathy. It's not often he's had a chance to speak about this sort of thing, and rarer still that he finds someone who might actually understand, besides.]

[voicetest] it's this guy

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/wanders in several months later with starbucks

pft you're cool

/tosses up a KH3 spoiler warning for like. the rest of this thread, most likely