HEARTGAME DRESS REHEARSAL

[finalbows]

thank u rah u hero

tracking sheet
 

[ ..somewhere in the pasture, Angel Devil falls down.
His clothes have twisted away into bone-white rags, leaving a body covered over with only thick swathes of red fur, and downy feathers. His long tail is curled into a tense arc, banded fur standing on end.

The air wavers like he’s a heat mirage, not a man. He’s boiling away with absolutely stupid amounts of arcane power… and, most frighteningly, he does not seem in control of the fact that it is there and being brought to bear. It’s impossible to get any closer to him.


When he speaks, it’s quite timid. ]

Ah,
I thought… I had a little more time.

[ (and in a blinding flash of light, there is the sound of something breaking.) ]

~KRRSHHK~

[any observers will see, strangely see-through and superimposed on the scene, some kind of vast tree, illusionary roots twisting over and around to frame a door.  the door itself is wrought of opaque stained glass in blacks and whites and greys; a stylized rendition of Angie in that strangely ragged, feathered form, curled in on himself, eyes closed.  Angie himself is nowhere to be seen. ]

instead, a shadow . . . steps into view from behind the door.  for a moment it looks like nothing so much as a second genome – then it turns, gaining features and definition with the movement.  The monkey tail separates into three plumes; a ponytail unfurls into wings that lift up from the sides of the head.  

Teleute(?) is here, dressed in her customary black, but there is colour in her skin, and her hair and eyes are blue.  she’s frowning.]

. . . well.  This is the least I can do before I go, in exchange for the safe harbor.

[she lifts her head, nodding to any observers, and gestures at the door.]

You’ll want to head in there now if you don’t wish to lose your flockmate, I think.  Even the false-death of this place won’t be much help to him, if his soul is left to finish pulling itself apart.

My sisters and I can maintain the way into and out of it for you, but we were not made to knit such wounds by ourselves.  Have a care.

Comments

[wants_the_phd]

[She startles slightly at his voice -- not put of fear, but rather she TOTALLY FORGOT what she was doing here for a second. All non-dragon thoughts just fell straight out of her head.]

[She glances around for angie, but doesn't see him, so continues staring at Nova Dragon.]

Milennia... amazing...

How did you meet?

[finalbows]

"Recall that time I tried to kill off the whole of every world?

...I had to burrow back through memories, to even try to do it. Follow through and back on things that made powerful impressions, large waves in time...

Awful tragedies, disasters... not just that, but important, beautiful, irreplaceable things. That dragon was one of the first I met. I fed it my rage... misery... my grudges... and appointed it as a guardian, of the open tunnel I left behind me."

[wants_the_phd]

[ --hang on a second,]

"Kill off every world"? When was that?

[Did you know? He showed her a vision of the crystal of origins, but not what he was trying to do with it.]

[finalbows]

"Huh. I really didn't tell you? Guess I lost track. When I visited the crystal of Origin... I meant to smash it.

My one, most unforgivable sin... I think it's what made Teleute take notice of me, honestly. She saw it right away. Where I'd been. What I'd nearly done.

...Anyway. Maybe that dragon understood it had already been and gone, and reviled the word for it..."

[ that dragon is sniffing the air azdaja-ward contemplatively, for the record.]

"...or... I just strangled it too much with my own ill will. Anyway. That's over now. Neither of us are trying to destroy any worlds, today. I think, it's hunting something around here, but I don't know what."

[wants_the_phd]

[When it starts sniffing in her direction, her little metaphorical puppy dog tail starts wagging.]

When you say "dead and gone", are you saying it's undead?

[She's sniffing the air now, too. Does it smell like a dead thing? Even if it does, she'd still hit it.]

[finalbows]

"I didn't call up its shambling corpse to defend my flank. I called it up in the prime of its power. So... that seems to be what's here."

[ 1000% live soul-dragon. ]

[wants_the_phd]

[She doesn't get it, but that probably doesn't really matter. She's more interested to know what it might be looking for.]

What is this place?

[finalbows]

"...Nowhere, really. A desolate, uninhabited continent. A nice view I used to come see, every year, just because I liked it. On the winter solstice, I'd fly out with Ginryu, and she'd drop me off and go entertain herself doing... who knows, while I would watch the sun die and give life to the stars."

[ he's in the middle of doing that right now, and can't be moved for hell or high water. ]

[wants_the_phd]

[Where IS angie? Can she follow his footprints]

[finalbows]

[ yup. Though there are times the path is stupidly steep and difficult, as it's a trail blazed by a guy with a much longer stride than hers and a big long fluffy tail helping him stay upright. ]

[ ...
it... really is a nice sunset.

It glitters wondrously out upon the ocean. A perfect hem of outcroppings of rock to either side, and the crash of waves drones so loud you could lose to it all of your thoughts.

And farther out in the water, the corals. The beautiful corals, piled like a mountain of bones.


He's just placidly sitting and watching it. Knees pulled up to his chest. A blue mask full of holes on his face. ]

[wants_the_phd]

[She gives Ginryu a polite berth as she follows the trail.]

[At the top, she stands quietly nearby for a bit, simply enjoying the beauty of the moment. She's not in a hurry to disturb this serenity with misguided attempts to save his soul.]


...I can see why you came here for the last thirteen years.

[finalbows]

"'It'll all be worth it, in the end. Some day, I will have earned an eternity of being in that moment.'

Looking at this... for the moment, I don't even feel any regret anymore, for what I did to try and make that happen, at least..."

[wants_the_phd]

What will you have to do to earn an eternity of this?

[finalbows]

"Trick question~. Nothing I could do, could.
...but I still think... it was worth it. To try."

[wants_the_phd]

Would destroying everything really have preserved this in the first place?

And if so, what stopped you?

[finalbows]

[ staring at his cute perfect beautiful pretty sunset. ]

"I actually do still regret the trying to destroy everything, even right now. But... some part of me... faced with the thought of no one ever coming here to this exact place, to appreciate this same view... I can't decide...

If that makes it worthless... or even more valuable."

[wants_the_phd]

Just imagine the the unbelievably unlikely confluence of events that led to this moment.

Clouds of space dust and crystal formed into a living planet. Eons of water, wind, tectonic plates, and probably eidolons sculped the land we're standing on. For some reason, a soul formed in you completely by accident -- one capable of appreciating the beauty of a sunset. And then, somehow, you found your way to a planet with sunsets worth appreciating.

Such a vanishingly small chance of any of this happening the way it did. But still, it did.

Isn't that neat?

1/2

[finalbows]

[ slowly flops. to lay on his side. while still watching that sunset. ]

"...Yes. It's beautiful. It's amazing. It's wonderful. It's...


Not enough. I still... want more. I want to see more things just like this... even with how marvelous it is, I still don't feel like I'm..."

2/3

[finalbows]

"Azdaja?"

[ his voice is very small. ]

"I... want to see something new. Somewhere... new. That's all. Before I go.
...Can you show me? Somewhere just as pretty as this..."

[finalbows]

[ jesus keith david can't you see we're having kind of a mellow moment rn ]

~ which mask to wear? ~

MASK OF THE AESTHETE
"Show him something wondrous."

MASK OF DESIRE
"Refuse to sate his desire."

[wants_the_phd]

[She dons the mask of the aesthete]

What would you like to see?

[finalbows]

"Give me sunsets. The ocean. Or give me architecture! Or... some kind of thing....you just can't see in the pasture."

[wants_the_phd]

[She thinks about it for a moment, and then another.]

[Then she turns and starts leading the way back down the path.]

This way.

[finalbows]

[ reluctantly-- he fears, if he leaves this spot behind, he shan't be able to reflect on it again-- he stands up, wobbles with a bit of stiffness, then follows. ]

[wants_the_phd]

[She leaves the trail that already exists and starts picking her way through terrain that gets increasingly more stony. There are no real indicators of where they're going, but she travels with confidence that implies she knows exactly what they're looking for.]

[...And that thing appears to be a huge, ancient, lichen-encrusted boulder. --Or more specifically, the hollow underneath. It seems like a stream might have been here, eons ago, that tunneled its way through the sandstone holding the boulder up, leaving a cave behind.]

[Azdaja slips inside. Follow?]