BZPRPG - Ko-Wahi

IC: Learu (Dragon Nest)

Inevitable.

She shrank, her shoulders falling, head falling, her heart and lungs and guts and guilt dropping, past her body, sinking into the ice, everything inside sank and everything else stood limp and she knew this was coming, it was inevitable, she had rehearsed this moment, practised it, turned it over in her head again and again and again and again and again and again and again, every way that he could react, every way that he could be angry or confused or sad or scared or all or none or picked and chosen at random she KNEW how it would go.

But she never thought about how she would feel.

Inevitable.

"Say what you need to say. Ask what you need to ask. I won't lie to you." She heard the practised words from afar; she didn't even feel herself speak them. This conversation, this inevitable confrontation, it was happening to someone else, someone who could brace themselves against this storm.

But it wasn't. It was happening to her. It was always going to happen to her. It was...

IC: Plagia | The Dark Walk

I looped the belt around my shoulder, across my chest. The thought of setting off explosives in as confined a space as this wasn't super appealing to me, don't get me wrong. But I remembered the last time that I had taken on Rahkshi -- way back in Le-Koro, with Kehuri and Naru at my side -- and I remembered how quickly they had swarmed me, dragging me down into the swamp to drown in the mire. As good I was with my fists and my sword, I wasn't hankering to go into Round Two with them under-armed.

"Thank, K," I said, returning to the back of the group, eyeing up the bonsai that Skri had picked up.

OOC: @ARROW404

-Void

IC: Xaruthan (Dragon Nest)

"No. You're the one who's going to talk. You have a lot of explaining to do."

IC: Learu (Dragon Nest)

"Then at least tell me where you want me to start."

IC: Xaruthan (Dragon Nest)

"What was the deal you had with Zarnarax?"

IC: Learu (Dragon Nest)

"The deal was that I told him about the meeting. I told him where it would be, and when. He thought I was turning on you, but I wasn't - I just couldn't let your plan go ahead."

Learu sighed. Monologue time.

"Either your plan would work... or it wouldn't. And despite all his talk of pacifism, we both know my father would have killed you and everyone who stood with you if you failed, and any opportunity to actually depose him would be gone forever. On the other hand, if you won, you'd do so bloodlessly, and leave him and everyone with him alive - so not only could he take back his hold on everyone, but... but we'd have changed nothing, Xar. Ignotus, my father, Laz, it didn't matter who led us, because the outcome would always be the same: violence and suffering inflicted on everyone who wasn't one of our own, and some of ours in the splash zone. It had to end. And... it did. It's over now."

IC: Xaruthan (Dragon Nest)

"Over? Sure, it's over all right. More over than I ever wanted. How many people died in that cave?"

IC: Learu (Dragon Nest)

"You were the one still conscious, why don't you tell me? I wasn't really in a position to keep count."

IC: Xaruthan (Dragon Nest)

"-And who's fault was that? Allow me to rephrase - Do you know how many good people I saw die in that cave?"

IC: Learu (Dragon Nest)

"Do you know how many bad people won't hurt anyone again thanks to what happened in that cave?"

IC: Xaruthan (Dragon Nest)

I took a large, heavy breath, exhaling hard enough to growl. "Is this what you wanted? We'll be outcasts now, killers of our own kind." I scoffed at the cave entrance. "No wonder we have to live with that savage in there. You haven't tried to contact our people, have you? You wouldn't ####ing dare!"

IC: Learu (Dragon Nest)

"You still don't ####ing get it, do you? We don't have people anymore. No one else left that cave, Xar. Just us. No one to contact, no one to cast us out. It's over. Really over."

IC: Xaruthan (Dragon Nest)

"There were others! Our entire species wasn't localised to that one room, now was it?"

IC: Learu (Dragon Nest)

"...you don't remember." Aru took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, searching her mind for the words and coming up empty at every turn. She wasn't there, for the aftermath. Aclaraung had told her himself. "Aclaraung... I hadn't spoken to him. I didn't know."

IC: Xaruthan (Dragon Nest)

"...Didn't know...what...? I thought he was in on this whole thing...?"

IC: Learu (Dragon Nest)

Aru shook her head, gently. "I... didn't ask him how he found out. When I woke up. But he told me the rest."

IC: Xaruthan (Dragon Nest)

"Aru. Explain."

IC: Learu (Dragon Nest)

She looked at him, silently pleading once again, begging him not to make her tell him. But Xar's face was resolute, and she broke.

"...it's just us, Xar. We're on our own. It's just us."

IC: Xaruthan (Dragon Nest)

...

"...I don't understand."

...

IC: Learu (Dragon Nest)

"I went back. I knew he was telling the truth, but I went back to the caves anyway. It's been years, and he burned everything away, but you can still feel it. You can still..."

Aru turned her nose away from the sizzling pan.

IC: Xaruthan (Dragon Nest)

...

My eyes were fixated on the meat. Partially raw. The smell was blended with something else, more metallic.

...

The meat grew and grew. Soon I could see between the cracks in its flesh, its ore veins burying me in darkness. The smell.

...

The meat had become my whole world, I was but a microbe, a peasant in its realm. Flesh hallways and cartilage doorframes, and windowframes with sinewy cagings, hair follicles extending like roots beneath the earth, growing, growing-

...

-and the smell, the smell was all-encompassing, burning flesh and hot metal, burning flesh and hot metal-

...

...

knock.

What...?

knock.

I was back on the mountain. It was cold. The meat was burning. Aru was there. And...?

knock knock.

...The meat was knocking. But there was no handle. I couldn't let it in.

kock. knock. knock.

...No, it couldn't let me in, I was outside, scratching on the door frantically like a F O R G O T T E N    P E T-

KNOCK

i

KNOCK

was

KNOCK

alone

...

...

hisssssss

The snow around me vanished in seconds, turned to steam. Then the rock beneath it began turning to magma. My measly cooking setup was swallowed into the melted sludge around me. I couldn't see. My eyes were just pointed into the middle distance at nothing in particular.

That particular morning had just become the worst one so far. And that's counting the ones where I died.

IC: Learu (Dragon Nest)

Aru did the only thing she could think of:

She splashed water in Xar's face.

"Hey! Earth to Xar! Don't you ####ing dare check out on me now."

IC: Xaruthan (Dragon Nest)

I didn't even feel it - the water had evaporated before it ever made contact with my skin.

The horizon was calling out to me, the open sky. I wanted anything than to be there, with her... with Aclaraung.

Abruptly, I pushed past her and pushed off the edge, my clawed feet pulling away some of the magma I had left behind. I spread my wings and swooped down, the sheer drop yawning below me, the glowing dots of magma falling into oblivion. Riding the crest of the wind, I rose and disappeared behind a neighbouring peak. Flying was just about the only thing that felt natural to me in that moment.

IC: Learu (Dragon Nest)

Shitshitshitshit-

Before she knew what she was doing, Aru had dived over the ledge. She brought her wings in tight to her body, trying to fall as fast as she could, to reach Xar before he reached the ground -

And then he spread his wings and swooped up.

Aru laughed. She couldn't help it. She would have sounded delirious were there anyone but the mountains to hear her, laughing until she cried, her tears swept away into the air by the very wind that carried her up - up behind Xar, and then above him, still laughing, quieter now, but still laughing. Still laughing.

IC: Xaruthan (Mountains)

She was following me. Why was she following me...? And she was... Laughing...?

I tried to shake her off for maybe ten minutes, flying through tricky gaps I knew she would struggle with - but she kept on following.

Eventually I came to perch and shouted up to her, "Stop following me, Aru!"

IC: Learu (Outside the Dragon Nest)

Learu remained airborne, circling above Xar. "What, so you can go throw yourself off a cliff in peace?"

IC: Xaruthan (Some Mountain)

"'Throw myself off a cliff'?! You think this is melodrama? When is an appropriate time to get upset, Aru? Leave me alone. I can't look at you."

IC: Learu

Learu settled on a perch above Xar, almost but not quite out of sight. "You can't look at me? Because our species went extinct while we weren't looking? Yeah, alright, grand. I'm sure you can find some other person who's the last of their kind to talk to. Not like it's an incredibly unusual experience only we have in common."

IC: Xaruthan (Some Mountain)

She was right - and that was the most frustrating thing. "You wanted us extinct. You and Aclaraung made your plans and allowed me to think I was in control. I just wanted peace. You used me."

IC: Learu

"I literally just told you I didn't have any hand in what Aclaraung did. And you know what? Yeah, I did want us extinct. I don't regret that. But just because I wanted it doesn't mean-" Aru bit her tongue and cursed quietly. "Ugh, nevermind. Wallow and blame me if you want to. But we both wanted peace, and you know that."

IC: Xaruthan (Some Mountain)

"Wow, what a wonderful peace you've created! Our species is extinct, and we're the lucky ones who get to live with that knowledge! That is, unless we want to have thousands of children that'll all be destined for incest!" On that last word I whirled around, superheating a section of the mountaintop. "How is this what you wanted?! This is a psychotic dream! And you don't even see it! Well, you stay here with Aclaraung for a few more weeks, see if your bright future is made a little brighter by the fire and roadkill of a ruthless, genocidal-" I punched the rock I had melted, creating a hole through the mountaintop - and screamed in pain as the armour on my hand melted and fused with my mutilated skin.

The screaming felt good, so I did it again, louder this time. Louder, and longer, till my lungs were empty and my stomach so tense it felt like I was going to vomit. Then, I did it again, and again. Soon the screaming became feeble whines that punctuated my sobbing. The tears would leave my eyes and evaporate before they could drip off of my face. There was no mercy for them and no escape.

Dead before they could live.

IC: Learu

"Hey, that's good. Let it out." Learu sounded genuinely approving, and with her face out of Xar's eyeline, he couldn't see how his words had stung. "This is peace, Xar. Doing the right thing doesn't always feel good, but I tried to end the threat the Mystix posed to everyone peacefully before, and all it did was delay it. And then when Ignotus died, my father's head sprung up in his place, even worse than he was - imagine a future of that process, endlessly repeating, and tell me the rest of the world isn't better off without Mystix. Karz, look at Aclaraung - he and his dragons are some kind of Mystix all their own and he's still a monster. We're all screwed up, Xar. It's in our blood."

IC: Xaruthan (Some Mountain)

"It's in our blood-"

"-It's in our choices, Aru! I made a choice to change, and so did you! What exactly do you think makes us any different from the rest of our kind? This, this is my ####ing blood:" I tore open one of the scars on my arm - glowing hot whatever it was oozed out and fell to the ground. I flicked the scolding hot substance in her face. "Is this why I killed your father? Is that why I trusted you? Because of my blood?!"

IC: Aru (Some Mountain)

"We're not different. We're not better than any of them. Shite, you gathered a friggin' army to come slaughter Ignotus and anyone who stood with him before you found out he was already dead!" Aru moved to a spot where she could directly face Xar, avoiding the glob of plasma in the process. "You killed my father because you had no choice. It was that or die, and it always was. Throwing him behind bars, sealing him in a cave, it wouldn't have changed anything. It wouldn't have stopped him."

IC: Xaruthan (Some Mountain)

"...So, by your own logic, you rightfully deserve to die, too?" My tone had changed. Less eratic. More somber.

IC: Learu (Some Mountain)

"Well... yeah." Aru shrugged. Her tone had lost its previous confidence, the self-righteous fervour slipping away now that Xar wasn't providing an equally energetic opposition. "And if I'd died in that cave, that would've been that. No more or less than I deserved."

IC: Xaruthan (Some Mountain)

"You've been awake for weeks now. You didn't kill yourself, nor me. Why?"

IC: Learu (Some Mountain)

Aru furrowed her brow. "What the ##### kind of question is that?"

IC: Xaruthan (Some Mountain)

"There is a reason why you didn't follow your own point of view and kill us both. And the reason isn't because we're any exceptions to this rule of yours - we established that, right? So, why did you let us live, judge, jury and executioner?"

IC: Learu (Some Mountain)

Aru rolled her eyes. "Haven't you ever heard that phrase about looking a gift Ussal in the mouth?"