daemonized | RECOLLE IC CONTACT.

[He scrolls through what they've shown him on their phone -- and Ardyn frowns accordingly. Blythe Family Murders. That alone he couldn't have hoped to have known, and while he knows this isn't the point they're trying to make, he can't help but feel awful to see this.

When he looks at Pitou his expression hasn't changed.]

Your family was... killed?

[ An exasperated sigh. How many times have they had this conversation. ]

I was an infant, only survivor. Supposedly.

[ They flap a hand, like shooing away a fly. ]

But if I was born out of an egg, what use do I have for those two?

[ The Blythes. Whoever they were. If they ever were. ]

[It's with an automatic motion that he hands the phone back, his line of thinking thoroughly derailed by that last statement. Born out of an egg?

His mind parses all of this together in a second, and he shakes his head.]

They were your parents. You weren't born out of an... egg in this life.

[Right? Though there was the issue of "proof" being brought up.]

Even if there is no proof, why would you believe otherwise? Your past is a valid thing.

Before the memories began to become... detailed enough, for me to recognize them as such, I assumed we were just being manipulated. Some kind of hysteria, or delusion. If I could believe that what we were remembering was some kind of fabrication, I can believe that things I can't remember certainly are.

[ They twirl the phone lazily on one of its corners, looking out one of the cafe windows at nothing. ]

That story has defined me in the eyes of others for as long as I can remember. What if that's all it ever was? Humor me. What if.

If that's all it ever was... then the rest of us need to reconsider what we believe to be real about our own pasts, as well. You can't be the only special case in these circumstances.

[Which would prove to be an issue. Ardyn is fairly certain that his family does exist, that they are definitely related by blood and not by some strange fabrication tossed into their heads.]

But beyond that, it would mean that you were never really the Pitou Blythe you believed yourself to be at all. That we are just being manipulated to the fullest extent. [He looks at them, curiously. Skeptically.] Is that what you're wanting to be true?

I don't think I'm special, and I don't want either to be true more than the other.

[ A bland response. It has been mentioned to them, several times, that they have taken to all of this with a remarkable calm. Is it just another symptom of not being human? That this existential dread can be perceived, even angsted over to a certain degree, but not completely disrupt them. Did that make them uncanny? What's so wrong with that, to both and not be.

Both human, not human. ]

I'm merely thinking. For all that this has been strange and uncomfortable, have I ever truly been threatened? As far as Grell tells it, had any of the monsters we've fought killed me, I would have returned. They're incubating us, quite carefully, without exposing any real purpose for it.

[ The look on their face is momentarily vacant. ]

We could make others like us. I saw it, we wrapped her in a cocoon... my brothers and I. Her old life existed, but it ended when we wrapped her up and made her ours.

[ They let go of the phone they've been spinning and it thunks down flat. ]

But Retrospec seems to have expected us to revert. Maybe it's not the same.

[This is a lot to consider, though perhaps he's gone over something similar in his own mind, just never gave the words life by speaking them. Now, however, he just listens to Pitou. Swirls the coffee in its cup languidly, without thinking. The frown still remains.]

We've all been threatened, it just depends on how you look at it. The current "us", our lives as we would have it now, potentially being overwritten. Being erased, or at least, influenced by these memories and experiences that we do not want. That we never asked for.

[It may not be the threat of death and the promise of not really staying dead, but it's a threat in its own way. The existential sort.]

Retrospec made it sound like our souls are reverting back to how they remember themselves to be. Pushing out what it doesn't want and making way for the familiar. If this is true, can it be stopped? Or can there be made room for both?

You're talking about the intangible with spatial vocabulary. There's not some upper limit of traits we can exhibit.

[ A correction to his argument. ]

The question is: once you muddy a definition do you still meet it. Scientifically, the answer would be no. It requires a new classification and with new classifications comes new relationships. That's taxonomy.

[ Leave it to Pitou to turn this towards science. They sip from their cup slowly. ]

But more importantly, I'm not threatened by what I do or don't remember. What bothers me is whether or not I did live as this human, and build this life, reacting to what I was exposed to, or if I am only remembering a script that was written for me. How deeply do Retrospec's fingers go into what I am or am not.

Edited (typos) 2017-11-06 04:51 (UTC)

Then let's say, for the sake of argument, that you are. That Retrospec has implanted a "script" in you, something that you believed wholeheartedly to be the truth this entire time.

[A disturbing thought, but worth consideration for the sake of this conversation.]

Does that make your memories of living as a normal human any less influential in shaping who you are now?

[He can't give them an answer if they have or have not been living a sham. He certainly hopes not, but reassurance isn't what Pitou is looking for.]

More importantly, how would you react? Would you suddenly feel any different than before?

[ Does that make your memories of living as a normal human any less influential in shaping who you are now? ]

Yes. It does. I'm not trying to say... [ A frown, because they don't want to say this either. ] I'm unhappy with the story. I've been a fringe human since this--

[ A claw taps on the screen of their phone. ]

It's appropriate, they eased me into their vision as much as needed and no further, but there is something to be said about agency. I know how I feel about the life of Pitou Blythe, but I want to know if it's mine or not.

[ Their scowl deepens. ]

Which sounds circular and pedantic, but you know what I mean.

[ They assert that regardless of if it's true or not. ]

[All of this elicits a sigh from Ardyn. He leans forward, elbows on the table, hands laced as they hold his coffee.]

No, I understand what you mean.

[Agency. Possession over their past, a concrete yes or no regarding whether or not it applied to them. Comfort in knowing.]

Then what are you wanting to do? Claw at Retrospec's door and demand answers? If you think you're not a special case, then these false pasts would apply to all of us, wouldn't it? Find proof in those existing, and maybe it'll ease your mind then.

[ A narrow, gruesome look. ]

What, I'm going to dig up their graves?

[ The Blythes. Their decomposed pieces and parts. ]

Is that what I said?

[Their mind always moves to the most morbid thing possible, doesn't it.]

What I'm saying is that if my past before Retrospec is real, then likely so is yours. Or at the very least, surely you can find someone who once knew your parents? Someone who can verify that they did indeed exist?

How am I meant to do that? Didn't you notice that phone calls aren't going out of the city?

[ That shit became very obvious very quickly when trying to contact people's supposed next of kin. ]

Yes, now they aren't.

[Of course they aren't. How inconvenient, how worrisome. And of course Pitou would pose this question when there was no way to contact family that lived outside of the city... as loathe as he would be to do such a thing.]

But let's hope that's not a permanent change. Otherwise we may never find the answer to your question.

[He drops a hand to tap at the table, just a bit.]

Let's do away with fact and scientific theory for a moment. Can we speak about opinion? About how you might feel about one over the other?

We can, but first, I'm going to point out that Recolle somehow becoming cut off from the rest of this universe if very suspicious.

[ And makes them wonder about how real the outside world is. All illusion to flesh out the fantasy that is Recolle? It's not any more far fetched than anything else. ]

Either Pitou is fine. There's nothing wrong with either of them. One is human, one isn't.

Suspicious, yes. But given everything else that's happened to this city, it does feel rather tame, even if it is... [Well, even if it does feel a bit confinding. Like the city itself wanted to become their prison.] ...Restricting.

[He looks at them, tilting his head just a little.]

You really have no preference? No connection to your old sense of self, so much that you hope it doesn't warp and change on a whim?

[ A frowning pause. ]

They're both relevant. I wouldn't be the human I am without the creature that it was built over top of. And without that human... I wouldn't have much sense of self at all.

[ They remember kneeling in the street before and ant king that could not even dare to stand against. There's a certainty there: the hive. The shape of it and its relationship to humanity is beginning to form in their mind. ]

I lived to serve my king. I was born for that, and I assume I would die without that ever changing.

[And at that, it's Ardyn's turn to pause. Both sides of the coin being relevant was a bit like the conversation he had with Dave last month. Being told simply to accept who you once were, and all that terrible things that came with it. Easier said than done, of course, when some of the things you remembered clashed so badly with one's current personality. Difficult to reconcile, and yet what Pitou says harkens back to this, in a strange way.]

And if you've no king to serve here?

[ Why would you say such a cruel thing. Pitou's brows twitch, furrowing briefly. ]

There's no king here.

[He's isn't trying to be cruel, but he's trying to parse out exactly how Pitou plans on going about accepting who they're becoming. He's frowning.]

So you'll find yourself new purpose? Or someone else to serve?

I don't know.

[ Their attention turns down into their dwindling coffee. ]

I suppose we'll see how strong my biological imperatives become. I was always somewhat human, but... I don't know.

[ There had been doubt that the ants could ever truly behave by the rules of society. ]

[It isn't really an answer, but it's the only one he could expect. Their whole world was filled with I don't knows these days, and it was frustrating.]

Preferably not strong enough to instill any frustrating restlessness in you. I should hope that you lean back into your more human qualities if or when that happens.

[He considers something.]

Your opinion of both of your halves being equally important -- would you apply that to everyone else, as well?

Preferably.

[ But: they don't know. And they won't know until it becomes to exhibit, or not. ]

I think it's up to everyone else to decide that. But... that they're likely biased in a way I'm not.

It's your lack of bias that gives you a unique perspective on the matter, though. Everyone else wishes to hold onto who they are, for fear of being erased or overridden.

[Though he speaks as if this does not apply to him, it definitely does.]

RECOLLE IC CONTACT.

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