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

[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.]

[deicider]

[Sniper sees what he's doing and decides to indulge him.]

Durcell. I'm interested in their connection to Mars. And backing the underdog is more fun, anyway.

[daemonized]

It can be.

[Backing the underdog, he means. Always amusing to see someone claw tooth and nail to a victory that is otherwise unachievable. Even more interesting should even that fail.]

But why the interest in Mars overall? A far-flung colony, no?

[deicider]

If a war starts now, it'll be between Earth and space.

[Sniper says this with perfect confidence, as if there were no question at all about the fate of this Earth. To them, the irony of it was immense. Back in their own world, the Mardi's had feared the future conflict brought on by the Mars colonization so much, they had risked world war. And here was this Earth, proving their thesis.]

I want to have an eye on what the colonies are doing, and options when things start getting hairy.