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

[finalbows]

[ he would, wouldn't he. ]

[ ... ]

[ the two of them working together, in tandem... turn up something.
one, single, precious, cracked egg,
and a certain red pearl.

but--
...
well, the situation in that egg doesn't smell, seem good. but... that tiny, fragile hope of a thing...
it also doesn't smell dead yet. ]

[wants_the_phd]

[Well, that's what we have Life for, isn't it?]

[We are attempting to cast Life, at least.]

[finalbows]

[ as the spell sinks into the egg, it, and the pearl both glow--

...

for the egg, the glow goes down to a guttering, low dim.
the light in Function Ball stays brighter, steady.
the Nova dragon is already carefully making a crescent of itself, around the two. ]

[wants_the_phd]

[She casts a Cure on the egg for good measure, and then another.]

[She's eyeing that pearl, though. It's good that it's glowing, but she wants to find the body it belongs to.]

[finalbows]

[ that fragile glow grows, grows,

finally, it holds.

the glow built up in that pearl, too.
but while she was focused on the egg... it's changed into something else.

Gained MASK OF HOPE. ]

[wants_the_phd]

[She dips her head to the dragon, polite.]

May I have the function ball, please? I'd like to reunite it with its owner, so it can be made whole again, too.

[finalbows]

[ it makes a long, low, rumbly noise,

and folds its wing protectively by the egg, then carefully sweeps it out to push the mask away. ]

1/2

[wants_the_phd]

[She dips her head and delicately takes the mask in her teeth. She then pads away to a polite distance before dropping it on the dirt. Bleh.]

[wants_the_phd]

[Her form melts back into a fully-clothed, human-shaped version of herself. SHE WISHES IT WERE THIS CONVENIENT IN REAL LIFE but she'll take what she can get.]

[She picks up the mask and looks it over. This was Angie's heart a moment ago.]


[...

She tries resonating with the mask, the way she would a crystal. Hello? Angie? Are you there? Can I use this mask as a dowsing rod to find your sad corpse? I just want to talk.]

[finalbows]

[ you have to find the right spot, to hear it.

do you remember those red circles, on the hand-drawn diagram of your body?

when you try it near one of those spots, you hear it.

and it guides you from the arid coast, to an open hole in a rotting tree.


...follow the roots, down, down, and down.
you know the place you're looking for. ]

1/2

[wants_the_phd]

[Wh,

Angie. Why. Why does it only work near her mystery guts. Do you think she might be hiding a function ball in there? Do you think she should?]


[???????????]

[wants_the_phd]

[GOD, she only ever has more QUESTIONS with this guy.]

[She follows the path the way the mask leads her, until things start looking familiar. Seems like this is an appropriate place for his grief to wallow, all things considered. But WHY is she being made to be athletic AGAIN!!! at least she's just going down and not up.]

[what's with all the petrified warriors tho]

Rėvėrence?

[finalbows]

[ wet cough noises

he's in the same spot and position as he originally died. gg ]

1/2

[wants_the_phd]

[good god, he's been dying down here for YEARS]

There you are.

[Picks her way over to his prone, floppy ass and crouches down beside him.]

[wants_the_phd]

I'm gonna cast Life on you but don't you dare vanish before we've had words.

[Casts Life on him.]

[finalbows]

"If Zidane... had ever bothered to learn magic...

My life would have been so different."

[ the mask of eternity he had when she got here turns into a black mask of the end. ]

[wants_the_phd]

How did you wind up here, in the end? What is this place?

[finalbows]

[ tunes btw 🎵🎵🎵 ]

"This is... the iifa tree. Master Garland used it to trap the dead of Gaia, so their memories couldn't feed their crystal... I used it... to help make my path to the root of life.

The purpose of this body is to be a Vessel... So I used that to my advantage. Flooded it with the lingering dead, used their rage and love and grief where my own was hardly enough...

In the end, I failed in my quest for destruction, the path to the crystal of Origin closed, and we were all spat back to the tree... and it, too, began to rage and die. Guess I wounded it, tapping it for power. The roots struck out at us, and... that's it. The end."

[wants_the_phd]

Hard to believe your grief wasn't enough, when there's so much of it in you. Your soul is filled with broken things. No matter how many times you've been revived, you're still dying in these roots.

It was nice of your soul to allow an egg to be found. I appreciate that openness to optimism.

But that's not what happened in real life, is it.

[finalbows]

"You never met me before I died.

Anyway. That's right. In real life, I started smashing all my favorite toys because I didn't get to keep them."

[wants_the_phd]

Bro.

You were so sad to leave the world behind that you tried to take it all with you.

I imagine it takes some substantial amount of grief to attempt to destroy the multiverse about it. That is at least slightly above and beyond.

[finalbows]

[ tries to roll over away from her but ow
lays back where he was. ]

"Fine.
Yes. I was profoundly sad. What else is there to say about it. I even used that fact as a blunt force bludgeon to your face."

[wants_the_phd]

[she looks at him warmly, without condemnation or hostility.]

For all Garland spent your formative years breaking your bones,
and you spent your remaining years devastating an entire planet,
for all your guilt, and heartache, and remorse, and yearning,

...you still haven't learned how to suffer.

There is an art to it. I will teach you.

It will not hurt. Rather, it will help you hurt less, if you practice.

[finalbows]

[ angie has said many many words to her today, to this point, verbal or otherwise.
he is takes a moment to not say words at this time and wait to listen, down in the quiet hollows of this tree. ]

1/2

[wants_the_phd]

First, I want you to think about these hurts you've experienced in life that still cause you pain. Wake those painful memories up.

Garland brought you into this world by accident. He tortured you. You could never please him, no matter how hard you tried. You felt like an outsider due to what you are. He forced you to destroy the thing you loved most. For the sake of that goal, you had to do things that you hated, for years. And when you finally thought you were free, you discovered he'd already killed you. You hurt so much in that moment that you lashed out at the world. You destroyed that dragon's children. You ended countless innocent lives for no real reason. You died without getting to see more of the world you loved. You were caught by Chaos to fight and kill and suffer and die for a cause you didn't believe in. When you tried to leave, someone tampered with your thoughts and memories to force you to continue.

Bring those memories up. Feel the emotions that they evoke.