[ Angel Devil. ] [ chatcube, or action. ] [ if you're visiting the rose barn, look for the door with the creepy bat-and-angel-wing sigil on it. Knock first! Or get zapped. ]
[ what is a rose roof if not for perching, honestly. when he notices Muffin looking, he reaches up a hand, silently asking for it to be taken to help him stand.
he's just gonna use magic to rise up but the bit of lift helps ]
Near the end of my twenty-second year... I began to meet with the Queen of Alexandria. I believed I could fan to life the rage in her, to start a real conflagration. A riotous chorus of fresh ghosts... just by digging at her buried grudges, against her two neighboring countries.
In our talks, I tipped my hand to her in bits and dregs. There was a secret weapon that already rested in the palm of her hand... were she to but seize it. I knew I could burrow out that coal, if I just kept gently feeding it breath...
One day, I heard her musing... toying over a figure, for how many bodies strong, she might need, for the whole task. Just a fantasy, of course. The toll in lives of loyal soldiers would be unfathomable, after all...
I professed a way to make that fantasy real. A few months later, I'm twenty-three... and we've started putting together the factory, hidden away in a nothing village, high on some lonesome plateau.
I think... it was in operation for...
... I.. stopped looking at the numbers after a point, Muffin, but it was several thousand. We called them "Black Mages," to obscure what they were, and they became the bulk of her army.
If I'm being honest, I designed them most like fireworks. I knew I could make Mist into life, but my results were a far cry from the craftsmanship of Terrans. They were... lossy? In terms of the magic keeping them alive, it was like a slow, steady drip away.
I could feel it. And I never took the time to fix it in my design, because I thought to myself: it would be stupid, wouldn't it, to hand this woman an army I couldn't simply outwait, if I wanted.
Back then, all I cared about was destroying my master, then living happily every after, presiding over all of Gaia as my personal playground. There would be no one in the whole world fit to challenge me, after that...
I'd long ago tried committing to mindless slaughter, going through it all with my own hands. It bored me. Death on death on death is banal and ignobling. It made me feel like my mind was fading out like a painting left in a river... So, in grand "family" tradition, I outsourced what I cared not to do myself.
Meanwhile, my master sat in his palace, meaning to wait me out all the same...
...I wanted to see the manifests... because the ones who became alert, they... started calling themselves by their numbers, as names. "Mr. Fifty," "Mr. Three-hundred-and-six"... like that. I noticed the numbers, but I didn't pay attention to which... to who, was who. I can't tell you much of anything, about most of them...
[ staring at a fluffy cloud that is cute and pillowy and devoid of sin ]
The first waves of deserters eventually founded a secret village in the woods that they hid with a complex illusion, and would pass word back to others. . .
[ aka: LOTS of them woke up actually.
hey Angie, why do YOU know about the secret deserter village. ]
I... didn't really care what they did, until I needed help with a new scheme after my first one went awry... so I went there and...
Pretended... I knew how to fix the error in their design, to get their help.
That's when I learned they were calling each other by the numbers for names, and saw they'd built little huts that looked like their own faces, and...
[ it had just made him feel this awful, roiling disgust. playing house in a wretched secret corner of Gaia, trying their best to etch a space that was comfortably theirs... everything his creations did, had felt like a reflection of his own lowly nature. ]
...eventually, it stopped being useful to have anyone's help. I just ditched them, after I realized none of my existing ideas to beat Garland would ever work. I have no idea what's become of them since then...
[ just. slowly flop-collapses onto his back, laying along the slope of the roof. looks up at muffin, taking him in from this different, odd angle. ]
Never have I ever... met someone willing to extend me so much grace. Never have I ever... been so scared, of the power my words might carry over someone else.
[ thinks: if he was a bird right now, he would have gently coo'd and sideways-shuffled closer and that would be that. he is not a bird right now. but this is a situation that arguably the bird communication would have been way easier than using his complicated mouth wor-- ]
[ oh he can he can literally just use telepathy to do that. ]
[ tentatively, he repeats what he remembers Angel Dove's cooing to sound like right in Muffin's head. hopes it's just as mellow and sweet and "despite everything we're right here" as he can manage. ]
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he's just gonna use magic to rise up but the bit of lift helps ]
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Can play party games later.
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The wind's tugging at his hair, and there is no more procrastinating he can do. ]
[ alright. Let's just peel the bandage. ]
So. The same way I have a "father," and siblings... you'll... you have... stepkids.
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Your dolls.
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A doll making dolls. Just like my Master.
I wanted to set myself above him, and scrambling up the stair, I put myself right on his level.
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In our talks, I tipped my hand to her in bits and dregs. There was a secret weapon that already rested in the palm of her hand... were she to but seize it. I knew I could burrow out that coal, if I just kept gently feeding it breath...
One day, I heard her musing... toying over a figure, for how many bodies strong, she might need, for the whole task. Just a fantasy, of course. The toll in lives of loyal soldiers would be unfathomable, after all...
I professed a way to make that fantasy real.
A few months later, I'm twenty-three... and we've started putting together the factory, hidden away in a nothing village, high on some lonesome plateau.
I think... it was in operation for...
...
I.. stopped looking at the numbers after a point, Muffin, but it was several thousand. We called them "Black Mages," to obscure what they were, and they became the bulk of her army.
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Were... all for the army? Used like weapons.
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If I'm being honest, I designed them most like fireworks. I knew I could make Mist into life, but my results were a far cry from the craftsmanship of Terrans. They were... lossy? In terms of the magic keeping them alive, it was like a slow, steady drip away.
I could feel it. And I never took the time to fix it in my design, because I thought to myself: it would be stupid, wouldn't it, to hand this woman an army I couldn't simply outwait, if I wanted.
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I'd long ago tried committing to mindless slaughter, going through it all with my own hands. It bored me. Death on death on death is banal and ignobling. It made me feel like my mind was fading out like a painting left in a river... So, in grand "family" tradition, I outsourced what I cared not to do myself.
Meanwhile, my master sat in his palace, meaning to wait me out all the same...
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Like... with the sheep.
...I wanted to see the manifests... because the ones who became alert, they... started calling themselves by their numbers, as names. "Mr. Fifty," "Mr. Three-hundred-and-six"... like that. I noticed the numbers, but I didn't pay attention to which... to who, was who. I can't tell you much of anything, about most of them...
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[in an awful, sad way, but it does. back then, whether it was dolls or soldiers, why would he care about them past their purpose?]
None of them ever became... um, fully awake? Like Tater and Tot.
[like angel devil and zidane]
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The first waves of deserters eventually founded a secret village in the woods that they hid with a complex illusion, and would pass word back to others. . .
[ aka: LOTS of them woke up actually.
hey Angie, why do YOU know about the secret deserter village. ]
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[yeah hey why DO you know about the secret deserter village]
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Pretended... I knew how to fix the error in their design, to get their help.
That's when I learned they were calling each other by the numbers for names, and saw they'd built little huts that looked like their own faces, and...
[ it had just made him feel this awful, roiling disgust. playing house in a wretched secret corner of Gaia, trying their best to etch a space that was comfortably theirs... everything his creations did, had felt like a reflection of his own lowly nature. ]
...eventually, it stopped being useful to have anyone's help. I just ditched them, after I realized none of my existing ideas to beat Garland would ever work. I have no idea what's become of them since then...
[ he didn't last long after that. ]
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With you... away and wars over, maybe have come out of village.
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If I could talk to Zidane again... suppose that's one more thing to ask.
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I'm... still not sure yet. Even now. As long as I don't, I don't have to deal with knowing the answer...
...but that means I can't stop thinking about what it could be.
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I think is... okay if you're not sure. Knowing or not, neither's wrong.
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Never have I ever... met someone willing to extend me so much grace.
Never have I ever... been so scared, of the power my words might carry over someone else.
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the second pops. the memory is a vision of Quetzal himself, laying on his back on the rooftop.]
Goes both ways.
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he can literally just use telepathy to do that. ]
[ tentatively, he repeats what he remembers Angel Dove's cooing to sound like right in Muffin's head. hopes it's just as mellow and sweet and "despite everything we're right here" as he can manage. ]
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