originallutece | ic contact;

I admit that I am curious. But as impulsive as I can be, I do like to practice at least a passing caution in general.

[Yes, she could do it. But he already knows that she'll reject the idea outright. But Rosalind is not wrong about one thing: whatever the effects are, it's doubtful that it'll last long in his system. The Starscourge would overtake it, drive it out, dissolve it into dark nothingness, just like it does with everything else.]

But sometimes one must simply be bold. I'm willing to give it a try as soon as you're ready.

[Giving her time to prepare and to record. He knows how you scientific types like to work.]

[Oh, fantastic. Rosalind brightens up considerably, pleased by this development, and gets to work. It's not so hard to find a camera, and the station even has a few devices to record things like ambient temperature and pressure-- not something she thinks they'll need, but they're interesting enough toys she brings them along anyway, because why not.

But the video camera is the most important bit. Armed with that and her own observations, she's ready.]

All right. Go on, and tell me what you feel as you consume it.

[oh my god Rosalind a camera

He eyes it, briefly, but thankfully 2000+ years of existence has made him mostly unaffected by just about everything. He's been in the spotlight before, though Rosalind's newfound enthusiasm makes him wonder, amusedly, if he's just an oversized lab rat in her eyes now. He doubts anything very humiliating will happen, to the point where he'll wish that the camera wasn't there to begin with.

Skewing back into unaffectedness, he's going to briefly reach over to grab the one she's already cut into (it's still clean, it's fine!!), and taking a bite. He's not sure what to expect, but-]

Well, it tastes as one would expect. [LIKE A COOKIE-] If something is supposed to happen immediately, I'm going to disappoint you by saying I don't feel a change.

Some things take time.

[Like, for example, sweets mixed with cannabis. I'm just saying, this whole thing is building up to be a pot cookie joke and the narrative has been remiss in not mentioning it before now.]

It's going to be really disappointing if this all ends in nothing more than the world's stupidest practical joke.

[Still: she comes forward, edging into his space, peering up at him to try and see if there's anything changed about his expression. Pupils dilated, face flushed, that kind of thing.]

[fuckin hell

She can edge into his space if he likes, Ardyn remains unmoving and barely affected. Not that either of them realize it, but standing around hoping for something to happen is the opposite of him experiencing "strong emotions", especially for a man who defaults to ambivalence half the time. So, he lets her examine his face. It's normal and as smarmy as usual.]

And you were so excited over a cookie.

Let's not get the story backwards, Mr. Izunia. You called me.

[But ugh, this is disappointing. Rosalind sighs as she takes a few steps back. She's not about to give up, no, but nor will she wait in silent expectation for something that might take hours.]

You're a thousand. You must have some interesting story or another to tell while we wait.

I'm more than a thousand. [A plain correction.] At least two.

[But anyway-] Yes, I called you, but not because I was excited. You should've seen how your eyes lit up at the notion of an experiment. Scientists never change.

[A scoff.] What sort of story would you like?

Edited 2017-10-06 20:52 (UTC)

[Good grief, is he really? That's a little worse than she'd thought, and for a moment she wonders at that. She still can't imagine living so long.]

Whatever you feel like telling. Your home, or something you were doing before you arrived here, or some person of interest you knew . . . what it's like to witness at least two thousand years of culture and society change . . .

[She shrugs.]

I'm hardly picky. But I am interested.

[All of these things she listed, they are not something he just talks about on a whim. And yet this is an experiment that they need to kill time on, and despite anything that he speaks about probably talking the route of bitterness sooner rather than later, he's inclined to humor her.]

Very well. Let's see... [Should he be sitting for this? Instead, Ardyn just places a hand on his hip as he speaks.] Shall I tell you about "home", then? Eos itself is rather large, and I will be here for years if I am to tell you about all of it.

Let me tell you about the Citadel instead. Home of the royal family of Lucis. Would that be preferable to you?

I notice you've shifted the subject from you to your world, Mr. Izunia. I'm decidedly more interested in the former than the latter.

[She won't refuse if he insists on the topic, but really, it's not as if she cares much about royalty. Still, that statement might almost be called playful; she's certainly not sulking as she says it. Ardyn is intriguing, and no matter how frustrating he might get, at least he keeps her attention.]

[Ah, but Rosalind, what makes you think that one is not related to the other? He has memories of the Citadel from thousands of years ago, and he has memories from a mere ten years ago. He is connected to that place, so very thoroughly. To the point where he's a part of its history, in his own way. A legacy of the Lucis Caelum line, for good or for ill. And he left it so crumbling, so desecrated, that he's sure that she would find at least some passing interest in it if he told the story.]

But I'm trying to share with you its tragic fate, connected with that of the royal family. You don't wish to hear it?

No, no: go on.

[She's never going to stop being nosy, after all. She'll get to ask more after his personal life later on. For now, Rosalind leans back, resting her hips lightly against the counter, watching him in interest (both for the story and to see if there's any affect from the cookie).]

[Then he begins his narrative.]

A long time ago, there was nation called Solheim. It was ruled by a god, one that was deposed of rather swiftly by mankind. He was, as to be expected, not very keen on this idea, and spread an illness throughout the land. A malady that would grow and consume the world over time, if not kept in check.

[He wonders what inferences she can draw from what he's saying now, and what he's already told her.]

The other gods, the ones that fought against the Infernian, delegated two family lines to protect Eos from such a terrible fate. The line of Oracles, and the line of Kings. The royal family was given a Crystal, a powerful artifact said to possess the soul of the world. They were granted its magic, and tasked to protect it.

This family was the Lucis Caelum line. Any questions so far?

[She wonders what family he belongs to. Belonged? Surely it must have been one or the other, if he had once been a healer who treated that illness. A king or an oracle? He'd been living in the same country as that girl, hadn't he? The oracle? Yes, she's almost sure he had. But then again, a man who has lived for two thousand years can hardly be expected to stay in one place . . .

But perhaps he'll tell her by the end of the tale.]

Yes. But finish the story first.

[fine geez no more pauses for questions for you then, Ros]

Well, the Lucis Caelum family lived in the Citadel, in the capital of new nation of Lucis. I’ve been there before; more than once. It is a grand place, making any who enter it feel small. The proverbial jewel of the country itself. And yet, when I left it, it was in tatters. Ruined.

[Abandoned and quite thoroughly desecrated.]

Destiny caught up with them; I don’t know if you prescribe to such a notion, but that is the only real explanation. There was one from their line who fell from grace, and instead sided with the darkness that would envelop Eos, adhering to an old Prophecy. And so my world is — was currently enveloped in an eternal night, and the Citadel remains abandoned and dark. What once glittered proudly now wanes in shadow.

[He almost laughs. It’s easy for him to recite this, and his emotions remain on an even keel. But he’s left a lot for Rosalind to prod at, and if he’s to dredge up any simmering feelings, they’ll have to be at the behest of her questioning.

And so, questions, Rosalind?]

Was that your family?

[She won't do him the insult of suggesting he was the one to fall from grace, but she wonders. It doesn't take much to ostracize a person, and a man who could heal and was affected in such a strange way by the disease . . .

Comstock would have called him unnatural. He would have coveted him his immortality and desperately turned Columbia against him. And it would have been so, so easy, because people don't like what isn't familiar. And when you've been spurned too many times, when you're insulted and cast out and ridiculed and despised because you're different, you start to despise people. God knows Rosalind knows that.

She inhales, ready to fire another question, but then bites her tongue. One at a time.]

[He looks at her, gesturing with one hand.]

You’re quick to make an assumption.

[A consideration. There’s little need to hide it here, though openness about this subject feels foreign, even leaving his own lips.]

But yes. It was. [Was. The tense is very important in this case.]

A family chosen by the gods to protect the world from an illness, and a man who could heal the disease unlike anyone else . . . it's not such a wild assumption.

[Was.]

. . . did it bring you satisfaction, that darkness?

[And at that, he does laugh.]

Now, that is a wild assumption. For what reason would I betray the entirety of my entire world?

Why wouldn't you?

[She rises, straightening up. She's a foot shorter than him, but she can be a commanding presence when she wants to be. Rosalind walks forward, once again coming into his space.]

You're immortal. You're different. You healed the illness and it changed you, and I'll wager that made you very unpopular. People don't like what they can't understand, what isn't normal, and a man who exposed himself to illness and never grew sick . . . oh, who wouldn't be jealous? What man, having lost his own wife and child, would look at you and not feel bitter resentment?

People will accept that kind of thing when it benefits them, but the moment the strangeness stops becoming so useful, they turn on someone. So you refer to your family in the past tense and say that destiny caught up with them, which is a very light way to say they either died or fell to the illness themselves.

You're no hero.

[That's not an insult.]

So yes. I imagine you would betray your world, because spite is a strong emotion. Because--

[Because Elizabeth had set the world aflame, and Rosalind had been ready to let it burn. Because she'd been hurt and angry and she'd gotten hers, so who cared about the rest of the world? Because she'd been spitefully, pettily glad that it all ended horribly.]

. . . because you'd want to hurt them all, if they hurt you.

[Ardyn stands his ground, even as she moves up into his personal space. The things she says to him, it's almost disconcerting how close they land to the mark. How painfully accurate she is with her assumptions (because yes that's what they are -- she cannot pretend to know him no matter how confident she sounds) even if Ardyn looks at her with something of a challenge growing in his gaze.

He'll let her finish. But when she's done, his own tone has gone a little sharper, a little more edged with the bitterness of someone presuming to know all that's he's been through. No one could. No one does.]

Look at you, Madam Lutece. Taking all the little pieces from my story and hoping to smash them all together so that they fit into one perfect whole.

[But he cannot deny much of what she said. But he can clarify what is so very wrong.]

I should have you know that I was very much adored by my people. The healer that I was, warding off an illness that stole their humanity out from under them. I gave them everything so that they might live, so that they might be happy.

[He had wanted to help. The emotion feels so... distant now, but he remembers it in a very empirical kind of way.]

In the end, it was jealousy that ended this pursuit of mine. But it did not come from the people, it came from my own blood.

[And that is truly the sticking point of his anger, what began the downward spiral. He can feel that frustration rising again, and in the end it does rather confirm her deductions.]

[There's something a little dangerous here, something she ought to be wary about, but Rosalind ignores it. She refuses to take a step back or demure in some other way; she's never done it and she's not about to start now. So she meets his gaze, rising to that challenge, her blue eyes sharp.]

What did they do to you?

[It's a question, and it's most certainly edged with something, but it's not a provocation. There's no sympathy in her expression, but perhaps there's a twinge of some in the back of her mind.]

[Then they'll be two immovable objects facing against each other, because Ardyn certainly doesn't intend to budge. He can be a malleable man when necessary, but he hardly sees any reason to (or feels any sort of inclination to be) when dealing with a subject like this. His past, the twisted, tragic thing that it can be. His memories, swathed in anger and spite, all fuel for his motivations on Eos.]

They made me out to be [a monster] unworthy of my title. Made the public believe that I was something I wasn't. And the gods, they deemed me as equally undeserving, tainted by the very thing that I tried to save others from.

[And what at all had been fair about that? Asked to have performed a task and then to have everything taken away simply because he had done what was asked of him. How he had hated them so, for delegating to him an impossible goal, only to punish him for it. As if he weren't already weighed enough by the Starscourge itself.

It angers him often just thinking about it. Outwardly, Ardyn doesn't show it, though the muscles in his jaw flex, his brows furrow slightly. This bitterness of his can be stirred with a bit of prying, but he will almost always manage to keep a lid on all the acid that threatens to overspill.

In the end, it's still enough.

Because something flickers in his vision, a form coming into view behind Rosalind. Something immeasurably large, something that belongs in the nothingness and everything of space and time -- he recognizes it immediately, and craning his neck up, it's an impossibility that it should fit in this room. An astral. A god of war.

Bahamut.]

[Ardyn lets out a hiss, stepping back, a frown immediately playing across his expression. This was impossible. Here? The whole of the station seems to warp into the black space of stars, allowing for the god to manifest completely, hovering, looming. He's stoic, donned in draconic armor, the Bladekeeper looking as if he were still perpetually holding vigil. He speaks, and every word shakes Ardyn at his core. Everyone syllable makes his mood flare in something beyond anger, as if stoking a white hot flame that lay hidden within.

Usurper, he says, floating and unmoving. A sentinel to judge all that he is. Tainted by the dark and unworthy of ascension. Misguided and lost, monstrous thing that you've become. Even as Eos is swept away by the storm, still you cling to notions of hate and sorrow.

A truly sorry sight.]

You... [There is always that flicker of primordial fear, the sense of meeting something that your mind should not be able to comprehend, when communing with an astral. But this felt startling and wrong, and Ardyn fears gods no longer. So easily it's pushed aside, and with what fury does rage boil over, no longer being kept at bay.]

You dare say that to me, after all you've done?

[Rosalind, of course, will see nothing of this very vivid hallucination of his. But she will be quite privy to a truly dangerous edge to his words. Something she'd not had the pleasure of hearing from Ardyn until now.]

Mr. Izunia?

[She'd turned when he'd taken a step back, but there'd been nothing there (and truly, Rosalind doesn't know if that's more frightening than some ghastly beast; it's only when she sees the empty air that a shiver works its way down her spine). Rosalind glances back towards him, but though the urge is there, she doesn't close the distance between them again. There's something about the expression in his face--

And then he speaks. Rosalind has to work not to take a step back at that, frankly; it's only the fact the tone isn't directed towards her that keeps her from racing away. That's a tone with a dark promise woven into it, one that leaves her breath catching. But it isn't aimed her way, and she won't simply turn tail and run at the first sign of intrigue and danger.]

Mr. Izunia, would you kindly stop paying whatever it is you're looking at any mind and look at me?

[It must be the cookies at work, but knowing that doesn't help her if he believes whatever delusion his drugged-up brain has cooked.]

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Omg pretend there is one less "entire" in that last tag...smh

tbh i didn't even notice but for you, i will pretend

ty ty also 1/2

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