the miles are way too long

[saviorexe]

WHO: Markus, Ardyn, V & various
WHERE: All around.
WHEN: The first half of IC November.
WHAT: This is basically a catch-all log for my characters.
NOTES OR WARNINGS: None, will add if any crop up.

[Closed starters below! If you want a thread, just hit me up at aurajen and we can figure something out!]

Comments

[daemonized]

[On the surface, it's simple enough. Benign enough, just engine components that would be more efficient or effective than what was currently being utilized, and it would admittedly be an easy sell to set up a meeting with the right people. Ardyn has confidence he could provide Sniper with what they need without much effort.

But it's as he said. He needs to sate his curiosity first.]

I'm not worried one bit. They say I'm a charismatic fellow, so it shouldn't be hard at all.

[Who is "they"? Who the heck knows.]

But why the interest? Looking to turn a profit? [A head tilt, considering.] Or... hoping to turn an transient idea into something real?

[deicider]

Who says that, your old country?

[The one that betrayed him. The tilt of Sniper's smile tells it for a joke.]

Yes, I want a profit. I'm going to use it as seed money to start my own company to sell tech from my own world. These components are pared down versions of my bash's tech; I'm not giving the real thing to Pulsar.

[Obviously. 'bash' goes untranslated; translating it as 'home' in this context doesn't work as well as when they explained it to Alex, and they refuse to compromise the concept by equating it to 'family'. Ardyn can ask or guess.]

[daemonized]

[Nope, that word definitely throws a wrench in the translation process. As usual, when met with a word unknown, the implant flings potential meanings in his virtual vision? Verb, to strike hard or violently. Verb, to criticize severely. Noun, a party or social event.

No, no. Ardyn waves it away both mentally and physically, like swatting at a fly.]

How enterprising of you. But do clarify, what's a 'bash'?

[deicider]

We're going to need the money.

[That was just practical. Sniper preferred investing in people and relationships, but when you needed to do a lot of shady stuff fast—And they fully believed it would come to that eventually—money was quicker.]

It's what people in my world do instead of blood-related families. Several adults living together, supporting each other, and raising any kids they have together. It's form the word i-basho.

[The social unit devised by Regan Makoto Cullen some four-hundred years ago that promoted the greatest flourishing for active minds, stimulated the most progress in a world that strove always to be better and better, and leave the ash of its history behind. Ardyn's translator will provide definitions for i-basho: a word that connotates home, but stronger. The place where one belongs, where one flourishes. ]

[daemonized]

[The context is sewn together, and Ardyn manages to get an idea of what they mean. Home, but with a deeper sense of belonging. Something that had been stripped away from him thousands of years ago.

Cool, cool.

Moving on, then, smiling all the while.]

I see. And your world is so advanced that this one can take advantage of whatever schematics you toss their way?

[deicider]

[Yes, it was more advanced. Sniper's world was better. It was always on the tip of their tongue; talking about their home—the home they'd never see again, the home that would surely be destroyed in the coming war—just sharpens the longing. A better world; a brighter world. The idea of being trapped in this dark mirror, unable to glimpse what their world will look like on the other side of the cataclysm they helped cause, drives them crazy.

Like Ardyn, Sniper can smile through anything. They've had less time to practice, but had honed themself on a wider audience. Global media was a demanding game to play.]

Not just mine. There are other people here from space-faring civilizations. And it's not all about profit; Transport makes a big difference on society. It gives people more options.

[That was enough about their own business.]

What about your own world? Is there anything you miss?

[daemonized]

[The directional shift the conversation takes, aimed at Ardyn now, is as clear as day. They don’t seem keen on sharing too many details, he notes, not without a little bit of give-and-take.

He makes a “hmm” sound, scooting his chair forward so that he can lean against the cool surface of the too-large desk.]

Not much.

[Not a lie. There’s not much of an attachment to Eos, barring the Prophecy he has to adhere to, stuck in his side like lances trying to bleed him dry. But he thinks of his world, now coated in night as he left it, trying to conjure up any sort of substantial reply.

He told Prompto, once, that he missed the night sky, the placement of the stars so different than what hangs above New Amsterdam. But you couldn’t see the stars through the Starscourge, anyway, and Ardyn only misses them the way someone misses something often overlooked — only sparingly.

So he settles on something else. Maybe this one is truer.]

Oh, wait, I know. I miss chocobos. Large birds, often yellow, tall enough to ride. Clever, too. They don't exist here.

[deicider]

[Sniper's not very interesting to talk about compared to Ardyn: betrayed and bitter in exile from a world he hated, it all has the ring of an epic, history apotheosized. The fact that Ardyn is so different from them, so opposite in temperament—Another dark mirror—just makes the mystery that much more enticing.

Sniper checks if Ardyn is wearing gloves as they laugh.]

That is really sad. What about in El Nysa? Was there anything interesting?

[daemonized]

[No gloves for him! Bare hands, which would be easy to note given how often he speaks with them. Big, sweeping gestures to articulate a point or two, here and there.

Like so, when he mentions a dragon-]

El Nysa was very interesting. Can this place say that there was an undead dragon threatening destroy the land? No? I think not.

[deicider]

I don't think we've even began to scratch the surface of this world. [Sniper fixes Ardyn with a smile.] We haven't even seen this world's god.

[It was just a glancing theory last time the two of them spoke. Now they were sure. It made too much sense —And it simplified things, too.

All Sniper had to do was talk to the god.]

[daemonized]

[He raises a brow, tilting his head just enough for strands of hair to messily fall across his forehead.]

You think there's a presiding god here, too, watching all the machinations of the world take place?

[deicider]

I don't think it's a god like that, no.

[What had Mycroft called such a god? A clockmaker. Clearly that wasn't it, if Ardyn was right, and divine power had been involved in the Displaced re-arranging the world.]

There's something, even if 'god' is just a convenient name.

[daemonized]

And isn't that all gods are? Just a construct of many 'somethings' with too much power.

[Ardyn's view of them are less than flattering. But this is true in his world; the astrals are not as all-knowing as they would like to appear. Neither are they omni-present.]

An entity, then.

[deicider]

Yes.

[An answer to both questions. Entities, if the mysterious texts they had gotten from the Insomniac Ball's Proprietor could be trusted. Sniper's own thoughts on gods are murky. Whether the god of their own world was punishing them by sending them to this place was still an open question, albeit unlikely.

But if a god made this happen, a god could reverse it. Fix it. Send them home.]

Was there a way to talk to the gods of your world? How did people do it?

[daemonized]

Only those of certain bloodlines can commune with the gods. On Eos, we had something called the Oracle, who did just that, and utilized her power to keep the world... [Vague hand gesture goes here.] ...clean, as it were.

The other family line is the royal one. Sometimes a pact can be forged with one of the Hexatheon, and they'll swoop down and aid His or Her Royal Majesty in times of need. How nice of them.

[Which does make for an interesting thought experiment.] So, you need to be 'special', or you need to form some kind of arrangement, or both. Think that might apply to this world? What a concept!

[deicider]

We're certainly special.

[Clean is a word that sticks out to Sniper, drawing their focus back to Ardyn's face. They've had to opposite hurled at them enough by their own sibling: unclean. Was there something about this world, too? Something unclean.]

Clean from what?

[daemonized]

Disease, corruption, and an eternal night. It was both her will and the gods' -- to be rid of a darkness, creeping up on their precious world.

[Talk too long about this and Ardyn will start to feel the ember of bitterness uncoiling in his gut. He focuses outward, instead of inward.]

This one, however? It's already a mess, isn't it?

[deicider]

[Sniper looks amused at the explanation.]

The good versus the bad, huh. The situation here isn't as clean-cut. It's a mess, but that's because humans are messy; I don't think there's a convenient, scary evil for us to overcome.

[daemonized]

Then what do you think there is for us to overcome?

[Never mind the idea that Ardyn should be expected to overcome anything is frustrating. He has better things to do, thank you very much, than being flung from world to world.]

[deicider]

[Do you really have things to do, Ardyn?]

I don't think we need to 'overcome' anything. This world is on the verge of changing, but that was true a long time before we got here. It's the pattern of human history. If we're not the catalysts ourselves, then we're the symptom of whatever is.

[Maybe Sniper was biased, given they had watched their own world come to war, despite every effort to stop it. Sniper was no censor, who could see the patterns of tension in population numbers, but in their own way they had been raised to scent war on the wind.

They consider Ardyn with a mild tilt of their head.]

Do you want to save this world, Ardyn?

[daemonized]

[And Ardyn laughs, teeth flashing white, as if Sniper has just said something inordinately funny. His shoulders heave slightly with the amusement rolling through him.]

Do you think I want to save this world?

[Sniper might not know him very well, but they've interacted enough to know that Ardyn's flippancy is not always a farce. His uncaring nature does stretch further than most people are comfortable with, and that includes the fate of this world in all its generalities.]

What responsibility is it of mine? Never mind if we are the symptoms of an ailing world. I don't particularly fancy playing savior for anyone these days. But tell me, do you care enough to do any good for this world? Beyond utilizing it as a way to... return home, and little else.

[deicider]

I'll do the best I can by this world while I'm here. I don't claim that's always going to look pretty. My own world had to nearly destroy itself, but it was worth it. The one we made in the aftermath is so much better than anything that existed before it. It's a world worth dying for. Maybe you don't believe that, but it's true.

[And maybe Sniper was paradoxically the final proof of their world's goodness. The 'darkness' at it's core would die a hero's death. Sniper could not imagine being in Ardyn's position, betrayed and abandoned. They trusted the world that made them too much.]

If I didn't have that waiting for me, I'd see this through to the end, just to know what happens. Maybe it will be better still.

[The conviction in their voice mellows to a more conversational tone as they circle back to Ardyn's other question.]

I don't think you want to save this world, but I don't think you have anything better to do, either. So why not play the game and see what happens?

[daemonized]

[He shrugs, which is rather emblematic of how he feels about the subject.]

You're not the first who's told me that, you know. And I think by taking on this job, I am playing the game. I do have a small investment in seeing us succeed at whatever nebulous goals we're all setting for ourselves.

[Another lean back in his chair. He hasn't even touched his coffee.]

Returning home and all that. [He pauses, looking like he has little more to say, then speaks up again.] You know, sometimes a dying world is just that -- a dying world. There won't always be something worth salvaging, no matter how much you pick through the wreckage.

[deicider]

I don't think a whole world and its history should come to nothing.

[Sniper will leave that, and stretch out a leg to prop it on the chair's arm rest.]

Have you decided who you're backing for Governor?

[daemonized]

[Such is the nature of things, of a universe where life is but a spark, quick to rise, quick to sputter out and die. But Ardyn saves that nihilism for another day, now that the conversation moves forward.]

Hm. [He considers it for a moment, though the effort is false.] You first. Have you a preference?

[Because surely they ask for a reason.]