aftr_stories | [MU] - DECEMBER STORYTELLING / MEMORY SHARE

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[MU] - DECEMBER STORYTELLING / MEMORY SHARE

Something is wrong.

This may not very well be obvious, at first. The Storyteller is not present to put forth yet another diatribe, informative or apologetic, and the backdrop of guttering flame and sandy campfire is as present as ever...albeit briefly.

Those who tell their stories will start to notice something...odd taking place. Indeed, no matter how they intend to begin their tale, the land of Mu will immediately start to warp to accommodate it, or something utterly unlike it, until storytellers and listeners alike may find themselves in an exact recreation of a seemingly random memory, in the most stark and painstaking of detail. There is no altering the memory, nor is there any preventing it once it's begun to play - you will simply have to witness memories that are not your own this go around.

Furthermore, stories that take place in worlds other than LifeAftr will be, frankly, inevitable. Those memories, too, will be recreated, to be relived by the teller and lived by the listener.

It is time, once more, for you to tell a story...with a slight twist! This is, in fact, our first player plot, as provided by Dragon! The initial setting will be familiar for oldcomers, and newcomers will recognize it from the introduction they received in their dreams.

Yet for this Storytelling only, people can imagine whatever stories they wish, from both their homes and their time on LifeAftr, as long as they don't mind the fact that others will be reliving those stories in the form of an impromptu memory share.

Even those who prefer not to voice their stories aloud are not safe this time around. If the memory is recalled in essence, Mu will shift to accommodate it in full.

There is, however, a benefit to this: those who venture memories to be relived will receive both a befuddled apology from the Storyteller, who will assert that this was most definitely not meant to happen (they're the Storyteller, not the Rememberer!), as well as a tired promise that the relived memories will be worth two offerings each, as if in compensation.

Not that it counts for much, probably.

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Idiot.

[This is enough to make Asch look up, though he's not letting go. There's tears at the edges of his eyes, and he stops to take a breath, closing them while he inhales.]

I am already hurt. I was burned well before we met and it still hurts, all the time. That you get that is one of the only things that makes it better.

[And with that he buries his face again, mumbling something that might be what do you think it means anyway as he does so, breathing slowly but steadily growing more normal.]

I'm...sorry.

[Because really--what else could one even say to any of this?]

[There's a lot of things, really. The response is still a little muffled by Ardyn's own coat.]

I told you. I'm not going to leave. I'll keep telling you as many times as it takes.

[He's not a flame - just a stubborn ember that hides under the ashes, refusing to be stomped out.]

Even when you're not your best self anymore, so just... Get used to it.

Don't be stupid. Even if you do mean that in all sincerity now, you'll not keep to such a thing. Even Gilgamesh didn't-

[His voice broke off, Ardyn thinking better of the sentence before he finished it.]

It would be easier for both of us if no one deluded themselves into thinking me someone able to form friendships. But when you do realize the truth and break such a promise...well, it'll not matter so much to the thing I usually am.

He also didn't get it.

[Asch's voice is a snap - he isn't sleeping in camp tonight, and Ardyn would know it, so as much as he is trying to live up to that best self, there will be moments where he fails. Many moments, when they're as emotionally fraught as this.]

Who would have betrayed him? Stolen his face and name and place in the world? I may not ever get all of it, but I have a hell of a better starting point than Gilgamesh would have if he'd even tried.

[He releases Ardyn, finally, to lean back on his heels, and gesture to himself, one hand splayed across his chest. His eyes are still kind of red from crying.]

I'm not him. I'm myself. If you're going to try to reject me, base it on that, and not Gilgamesh or Izunia or Luke or anyone else.

[The way he says 'Luke,' there, it's clear he doesn't mean his replica.]

Just on Asch. That's all.

I can't trust you. I can't trust any of you. If even the two I loved more than anything--if even the other halves of my heart and soul would abandon me, then what use is attachment at all? Why should I ever assume anyone who swears friendship and loyalty will do anything but discard the concept when it proves convenient to them? What good is a world that only ever lets you down?

...I just wish this to be over, Asch. All of it.

Maybe it isn't. I don't know.

[Somewhere, here, his hands are going to find Ardyn's again and hold on, like holding on is the only thing he knows how to do.]

They shouldn't have left you. My family shouldn't have offered me up on the altar of promised prosperity. But they did and here we are, anyway, you and me and every other wreck on this rock screwed up by the people who should have protected us.

But - that's the answer I've chosen.

[Not to the ones Ardyn asked aloud, maybe, but to the one he thinks is at the core of it - why keep trying?]

Because I'm determined to be better than the people who left me behind. Because living and loving and making it even a little better, for you and me and every other wreck, is the single biggest spite I have to everything they tried to make me into. Because that alone makes it worth it, and everything else is just a bonus.

[Spite is a powerful motivator, as Ardyn should well know.]

[Ardyn's hands were tense under Asch's, as though he wanted desperately to pull away and hadn't quite processed the finer motor skills of how to do that yet.]

And what if I don't want to continue trying? What happens if I'm so tired of being twisted and warped until spite and hatred is all that I feel that I can't take doing even one more thing out of spite itself?

I don't know. I don't have those answers.

[He's not quite eighteen and as imperfect as they come, not some great fountain of wisdom. He's just doing his best!]

But the sand's still there if you want to lie in it. If not, I'll help you up.

...I'm afraid you're wasting your effort by offering your hand.

I don't think I am.

[Ardyn hasn't pulled his own back yet. So Asch squeezes it, solidly, not the desperation of his own panic but something -

Something to pay that back, maybe. Give and take in reassurance that someone is there.]

You're still looking for a reason to get back up. You're asking and searching and every time -

Maybe you don't need one. Maybe you'll only find that answer by getting up and trying.

[Walk with your own feet, he'd said once. That's the only way to find any truth in the world.]

I don't know that answer. But I know myself a little better than I did, before, and I know you a little better. Enough to know that when someone shaves off your two thousand years of daemons and darkness, there's not really that much different.

[Another squeeze, and he folds his other hand over the first.]

The person I am at my worst... Is so scared of letting other people in, of being hurt again, that I try to destroy them before they even get close. And at the end of the day, you're not so different.

Have you even tried, since Izunia and Gilgamesh, to let anybody in? Or have you been just as scared as I am?

You're wrong. The only thing I am searching for is a conclusion. I don't want to be salvaged, if ever I could--I just want to end and I don't know how many ways I have to tell you this before the message gets across.

[He scowled at the question, still bitter and angry even at his best and yet not directing such anger at those who didn't deserve it.]

...I'm not afraid. It is common sense and not fear which leads one to avoid a foregone conclusion.

[Oh no. Oh no, Ardyn, you shouldn't have denied it. Asch's expression is entirely that of a cat who has found the cream.]

Really?

[He's not good at this. But he is actively working on it, and the more he turns it over in his head, hesitation and all - ]

Because I'd find it more surprising if you weren't afraid of it happening again, after being hurt the way you were.

I've nothing to be afraid of. Pain like that isn't even something I can feel anymore.

[First of all, Asch doesn't even believe that second part, but secondly - ]

Right. Because fear is completely rational, which is why Izunia had me screaming on the floor ten minutes ago.

[Ardyn really.]

I'm telling you the truth. That thing I am only feels hate and fury. Fear, joy, compassion...none of that is part of it.

I'll believe that you think it's the truth. But if that were truly, in the literal sense, all you're capable of feeling, then that wouldn't be different now.

[He's got that conviction again. The half-mad one of someone who has glimpsed something of a truth no one was meant to see.]

But that desert doesn't create the impossible. This person - [He shakes the hand in his grasp up and down, briefly.] - couldn't be here if he didn't exist in even the narrowest possibility.

The Ardyn in front of me right now feels compassion. The Ardyn in front of me is afraid, too. So, the Ardyn that exists everywhere outside this island can still feel those things, even if he doesn't want to.

It's not worth it, Asch-!

[Ardyn quickly cut off the frantic note that crept into his voice, shaking his head and pressing a hand to his eyes.]

It isn't. One tiny sliver of humanity, one proverbial needle in an endless haystack--the risk taken in reaching out to that massively outweighs the possibility of any success. You and the others have shown me more compassion than I've seen in two millennia, and for that I'm grateful--so I don't wish to see you hurt because of me. Because you wished to salvage that which may never again be unearthed and provoked a monster in your attempts.

[Oh Ardyn, you bloody idiot. (Oh Asch, you smaller, slightly more blood colored idiot.)]

I got attached to the monster first, you idiot. You think he's going to scare me off now?

You can't get attached to something like that, you imbecile. You'll be manipulated until you're of no further use, and then I'll more than likely kill you. Possibly several times, given how this miserable place works.

[And there's no real point hiding how his anxiety spikes up at the words, even so, because surely Ardyn knows enough by now to realize that it's manipulation rather than death that Asch fears.

Deep breath.]

I don't think so. It's a lot of effort for not a lot of return, isn't it?

[ - but by the same token, he's always on guard for manipulation, and it actually would take effort to lead him around, unlike Noctis and company.]

Prove enough of an annoyance in an endeavor as futile as this, and an imbalance of effort won't be a hindrance.

Please. If you truly claim to care at all then simply once, think about what I actually want of you. Don't do this.

What you want is for other people to not get hurt. But you don't get to make that decision for us, either.

I should think I have some say in it, considering it's my hands your blood will be on.

What's it matter? I thought we were all going to inevitably betray you anyway. Isn't that what traitors deserve?

[The question is casual, almost amused - except that there's an undertone of danger to it. Whether that's just because he's cutting close to home and looking for when the blow lands, or because Asch really does think that traitors deserve exactly what they get, is impossible to say.]

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