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cradleproject2016-09-03 03:40 am
al2955) wrote in cradleproject2016-09-03 03:40 am
WEEK 13 - 01010000 01000001 01011001 00100000 01011001 01001111 01010101 01010010 00100000 01010010
| the pygmalion. . . ONLINE  CAPTAIN'S LOG: WEEK (13) |
saturday (10) survivors  Something is different. You can feel it in the air: an ominous presence that weighs down the ship like it's underwater. Try as you might, you can't escape the feeling that you're being watched, the sensation of someone just out of view tailing you. Tensions are high, and paranoia grows with it. You feel it more than see it, and that's what warps your perception of the ship. Is it darker? Are the lights dimming? Who is it that calls out to you? Why is it so cold? Who can you trust? The distinct sensation of not knowing who your back is to wraps around you. There is one thing you can trust in, however; though you feel exposed, you are not alone. Mother is here for you. taken list profiles private conversations setting rulebook ENTER COMMAND_ |
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Arumat's scythe remains scalding hot, heat strong even with his gloves on to take the barest hint of an edge off. it fights him at every step, and the pressure increases while the heat does. weight slowly being added to him, testing him, growing as he moves.
Yuno, she asks her question, and if she takes her eyes off Dave, he disappears. but if she takes her eyes off Arumat, he also disappears from her perception. there is no one. there is nothing. there is the sense that the only thing there is the living darkness, eyeing her with as much amusement as a cat with a mouse.
then the voice splits. addressed to them and them alone, the voice speaks - and what they hear is different to them.]
Arumat. A soldier, concerned with order, justice, taking matters into your own hands. A man who so desperately wants to believe he's in the right even when his hands may get dirtied along the way. It's okay if you justify it to yourself, right? It doesn't matter how many die, because you're in the right.
You want people to listen to you, you would force it if you could, to squeeze out every drop from the time you have left. You've forgotten what happiness is, but you should have thrown away your life when you threw out your smile. What are you doing, hanging around like you are? Do you really think you'll die in some blaze of glory? It's pathetic. Your scythe could be put to better use right now.
---
Oh, Yuno. The weight of the universe on you, and you only what, fifteen? You should have just let it happen. Why do you struggle so much? Do you truly believe someone as ignorant as you can play at being God? Do you think it'll somehow end well for you? You can lie to yourself all you want, but everyone knows. Maybe you becoming God is why your world was ruined in the first place, but that's what you get when you give such an important job to a child. You get fuck ups of the highest degree, and the fault lying with one person alone.
There's nothing to save. There's nothing worth going back for. You can't save him, or anyone else. Even you dying in place of someone else would be meaningless. So this time, maybe you could give up, and let someone better suited take your place. We'll see if we can fix your mistakes this time around.
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but it isn't knives or bullets that hail down on her. she hears its voice again, and it echoes inside her.
the taunts ring out. they're awful, hurtful and damning. "Why do you struggle so much?" because he's there. "Do you think it'll somehow end well for you?" It doesn't matter how it ends as long as she's with him! "You can't save him, or anyone else." she -
yuno -
- knows that.
better than anyone else.
moreso than to anyone else, this truth has existed to her plainly. yukki's cold, unmoving body is a living nightmare, a memory she can't wash away despite how hard she tries. it's imprinted into her very soul: the way he looked up at her but didn't see anything.
her legs are moving and tears are falling freely but she knows. she failed in the first place. the point of rewinding time was to find a place to belong, to find someone to love her for herself. to find a purpose. to discover a future for herself. she remembers being in a classroom and being told that she'll have a future and she cries harder, lets out a cry because it's true: even if yuno dies in place of someone else, no one will be happy or safe. it doesn't save anything.
her desire for death has always been a selfish wish.
she knows that.
...but she moves anyway, all the way to the figure. she growls and her eyes narrow, because she will deny, deny, deny. wipe it away. press on. don't fail. yuno will not allow for mistakes. ]
Shut up! I'm not listening to you, liar!
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[Dave is there, Dave is there, she's nearer to him, he looks relieved to see her -
but the moment she reaches to touch him, to help, he falls apart into ash. just an illusion. just a trick, and where he might have been sinking into the ground, now Yuno is. her feet are sinking, so are her ankles, and somehow now her limbs feel so heavy. like it's exhausting to fight this and that maybe if she went down, let the cool ground wrap around her, she'd come out in one piece on the other side.
the weight comes from the darkness that's settled on her, now a tangible presence that can be destroyed, if one could summon the effort to do so.]
Don't you lie, Yuno?
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and yet, when the image of dave is revealed to be a trick, she screams. ]
Not again!
[ she's sinking. she's disappearing. she shouldn't belong here, she doesn't belong here. maybe it's supposed to feel comforting in how encompassing the sensation of sinking into nothingness is, but yuno struggles. it's hard but she isn't bound to logic in this space, she realizes as she tries with all her desperate heart to pull away. she wishes and wishes and wishes for it to stop. she wants to run away, to break free, to find the real Dave and show herself that this is okay, it's okay to feel like you belong somewhere if people will want you.
she shouts, exerting all her strength into pulling herself out of the darkness. ]
It doesn't matter what I am. You'll use it against me no matter what. I'm a liar? M... maybe I am. But it doesn't matter! You won't use it against me! I'm going! I'm going!
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Where will you go?
[that is not the beast, jaws snapping down on flesh and blood. that is a question, soft candlelight in a winter night, a brief passing moment that should be seized for a chance to not drown.]
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as she rips through the illusion's inky grip, yuno hears it's voice, again. egging her on, challenging her. "where will you go?" it isn't a simple question to her. it's a taunt, an attempt to knock her back into the pit where she'll sink and eventually be crushed. whatever this gunk is, she hates it, she decides. she detests it and that dislike gives way to ripples of anger that burst into fury and with a loud shriek - ]
To the person I care about most!
[ and the thing is, there's so many people that could apply to. the obvious person is dave, but there's adrien, too. he has his hand back now, but what if he needs her? what if he's struggling right now? what if elizabeth needs her? rhys? jack? what about roxy, who she promised to protect? what if they need her? she can't stay in some dark pit losing to some ominous entity she can't see. yuno has a place to return to. she knows where she wants to go! to the people who matter the most to her!
she will only focus on the people she has accepted into her life now, using the thought of them as fuel for her righteous fury. sticky black tar sticks to her hair and she pulls, pulls, pulls against it until it snaps and pink is released from black, so she shrieks again, until her throat burns.
and she stands. ]
To where my future is.
[ despite all odds, yuno has found a place she wants to return to - despite all odds, she's standing on burned legs that still ache and itch. ]
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So you get a future.
[the remark is dry - but the feeling isn't directed towards Yuno. see, she gets a future. the implication is directed to a target in the distance, something still obscured by the darkness. Yuno, it implies, is stronger than this one. she gets something that the other does not. she is worth more than the other is.
(Grell knows, she knows, Yuno earned something that Grell will never have and doesn't deserve. she has people. she has those she cares about - it had been a nice lie, for a while, to think she was among that number but no. every bridge will burn because that is fate. Yuno has a future and Grell won't be in it. be free be free be free don't be me)
the heartbeat is stronger, but no faster. it's all still living - she's not out of danger yet.]
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{ Arumat doesn't even get to finish, because even as the flame— no the heat more like— from the weapon burns every the more brighter, and feeling as if like searing hot flames against his own scarred hands, his attention is arrested by those words. He releases a growl, golden eyes narrowing once again as he tries in vain to pinpoint the voice and from whence it came. Yet, the words hit him at 'doesn't matter who die' first—}
No! Shut the hell up—!
{ His protest is choked because at 'thrown away your life', he can't help but falter and that's what stings him the most. All this time... it's never been through his own want to live that have brought him this far, but by living through the idea of having revenge. Deep down, he knows a part of him wants to listen to that, to just d— }
That's right—don't listen—!
{ He can't hear what Yuno is hearing, but it's clear that she's being fed words too and he's trying to ignore the words, and yet, somewhere along the line... he's dropped his scythe. }
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[the scythe is gone from his hands, and the darkness moves in. it wraps around his wrists and sticks, it goes after his neck, and the malice in it says that is no coincidence. not tight enough to kill, but enough to choke halfway, to make it hurt and remind him of that day.]
You think your might will get you through everything. But it isn't enough. And you will die choking on your regrets.
[hatred is what breathes out of the darkness, a poison that wants nothing more to consume. though as it moves to have a tangible presence on him, it then becomes something that can be broken. ripped apart, uprooted, destroyed. it can be fought - it will just fight back, to try and suffocate in despair.]
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You don't... you don't know anything about me!
{ Are we the least bit surprised that Arumat's most certainly about five seconds from flipping his shit and going nuclear from hearing this? Not at all, likely enough, but the next moment is probably the test of whether or not he can essentially truly make it or break it. Especially when those tendrils of darkness move right in to capture him where he stands. If it weren't for the fact it had also did well to wrap around his neck, Arumat would've said more almost instantaneously.
His first instinct is to simultaneously struggle and give in—but of course he struggles as the thought comes through his head, Of course it's not enough. It's never enough.
His people, Shelley, Machias, Crowe, Todomatsu, Minako, and...Frankenstein—
He could never protect the people he loved or care about. He died with regrets back then, wishing he could've done more, even though those weeks had passed for quite a long time, to stop that certain man from being judged wrongfully (he knew he tried his best, but still).
He'll fight as long as he's able, because of this. He has no reason to give in now they're all here again, right? He'll hang onto that thought, despite how frustrated he feels about his own impotence, and that he seems always so powerless.
It hurts, and the memory of that day burns brighter more than ever, as he's gasping for air, feeling as if his eyes might water from his own recollection of it—the emotions are overwhelming and suffocating him right now even as he continues to struggle, trying to tear the darkness off of him. }
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What don't I know about you?
[an honest question, if he has the mind to hear it, light instead of the dark. true wondering - but in this context, it could as easily be read as the darkness simply mocking.]
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You don't know about the times I've acknowledged when I've been wrong, and adhered the words of others.
{ Listening to what people had to say a few times here (Grell, in particular to name one) and there prevented his own hubris from overtaking him all the time. He's stubborn, he knows this, but he's not to the point where he'd never have listened at all. Besides, he knows right now he can't let this get the better of him.
Whether or not it's an honest inquiry, Arumat's of the mind to answer it. }
You don't know about when I fought, not only with my own strength, but also with my own allies right besides me. When I've been able to make a difference-
... You clearly don't have the full picture, and I won't allow you to stop me in my tracks. I wasn't given this second chance just to fail again and wallow in despair. Not when my comrades are counting on me.
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Comrades. A difference. I see.
[it's almost scornful - but it's not directed at Arumat. it's at a point in the distance. he has comrades. he's made a difference. he possesses something that another lacks. his words, his confidence, twisted up to become a taunt fired at something else obscured by the darkness.
(she knows. she understands. her connections were always going to snap in pieces, shatter like glass. there was no difference to be made, there was only something that amounted to more destruction. good people changed things. monstrous ones simply cause more grief. she knows. Arumat has a chance. run. get out of this place.)
reality hasn't let up. the feeling of being watched, of an enemy's breath on the back of his neck, it's still there.]
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Hmph. It only took you that long to take notice?
{ He feels the breath at the back of his neck, and it irritates him more than anything but other than that? Compared to earlier it was something he could deal with. }
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[the darkness pervades, thick as a fog, but it does not seek to ensnare him in the same way. rather the words are being hissed in his ear, an unfriendly whisper, a monster not quite inclined to give up just yet.
but even through the darkness, there is a small shine of light - it changes with the steps, a reflective surface - but it is there, growing bigger as he goes towards it, though still hidden enough to disguise its shape.]
All must bear their choices.
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{ Arumat is not pleased with going through all of that for perhaps obvious reasons, but he'll start towards that light, yet at the same time not making it into a break neck run or any run at all in case Yuno needs to catch up. He's considerate enough not to forget his partner in all of this—whatever this is.
After all, no one's alone here, not as much as they think they might be. }