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[daemonized]

@ardyn.sky | ■ ▲ ◌ ▼

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[mercurio]

the black gooey stuff
the daemonization

you don't have that anymore though

[daemonized]

[Silence, and then-]

Daemonization changes a person from the inside-out. Threatens to dissolve their insides until they are nothing more than vaporous scourge, or until their bodies twist into foreign shapes and physiologies, to become daemons.

So yes. I would say it does hurt.

[Ardyn neatly steps around how any of this might apply to him; how the Starscourge might've made him feel, alive in his veins for so many millennia.]

[mercurio]

you still acted like it was nothing
all those times you met us on the road before we knew who you were and what you wanted

[sorry, slaps this back around]

is this really what the gods wanted?
why couldn't they have gotten rid of it themselves?
they're gods, right?

[daemonized]

Maybe it was nothing. The Starscourge had made me so impervious to much in my immortality; and pain, even if constant and writhing, was ever far away.

[More truth than sidestepping this time, though it could be easily both.]

Consider this for a moment: maybe the gods aren't as all-powerful as they would like for us to believe. Maybe they floundered in response to a scourge coming to ravage the land, and found that it would be easier to sacrifice the faithful under the guise of destiny. Of a Prophecy they made for themselves, so that they could pin the Lucis Caelum family under it, unable to be freed.

Not very benevolent, are they?

[mercurio]

no, they aren't

[he doesn't need ardyn's reasoning to reach this conclusion, but it does help put things into perspective. just like noctis and lady lunafreya spoke with the gods, interacted with them in a way that mere mortals could not, highly likely were the chances that ardyn, too, would have had interacted them.]

[as much wrong as the man has done, he is the only source he has of understand—of a link back to eos.]

you tried to stop it, right? the starscourge?

[daemonized]

I did. A very long time ago.

[An image bursts behind his eyes, that lone tree in a swaying, golden field. He pushes it away with the practice of a man constantly hounded by it.]

But you saw how well that turned out for me in the end. Just another cog in the machine of the gods, constantly crushing anyone underfoot.

[mercurio]

[and now they'll do the same to noctis, no doubt.]

[prompto's reply doesn't come but for a while longer.]

was everything that's been happening since... forever
part of their plan? part of the whole leading the prophecy into taking place?

[daemonized]

That depends. Did the gods know that the Starscourge would be such an issue, deteriorating their precious star the moment it began to spread? Was the Prophecy put into place, well before Eos was even conceived?

Or was their "solution" nothing more than a reaction, having no better way to deal with the situation than to offer up a family line as sacrificial lambs?

[A scoff on his end, unheard.]

Did you know that Bahamut told me once — oh, it already feels like an age ago! — that it was all planned? Part of some grand destiny? I suppose, no matter how it came about, that should answer your question well enough.

[mercurio]

couldn't they have fixed it themselves? they're the astrals after all
it's not like the starscourge is some divine being like them

[right? there's a lot of mystery shrouded in this whole grim affair]

[the more he learns about it the less it does make sense; why not resolve this a different way? it's enough to pick out inconsistencies, to really doubt what the astrals promised, could or couldn't do.]

maybe they're not so divine after all

[blasphemous, gasp,]

there's no fighting fate then

[daemonized]

Exactly that, and exactly as I've said before. Maybe the astrals are not as almighty as they would have us believe. Maybe they have power beyond mortal ken, but does that mean that they are omnipresent? Omnipotent? I think the Starscourge proves that they are not.

Lest you wish to leave Eos in the thrall of darkness, then no. The Lucis Caelum line is very much fated to die. Such as it is.

[mercurio]

[and there's no way that noctis would allow for that, if he's the only one who can stop it; if he's the only one who can truly save eos, its people, allow for a new dawn to come where no one need fear the dark anymore.]

[he thinks he gets it a bit better now—doesn't make it any less painful to consider.]

[happy birthday, dumbass. stop talking to the wrong people.]

is that what you want, too? even here?

[a land, a universe, where you don't have to be shackled down by who or what you were before. where androids are human, where the scourge doesn't infect every cell of ardyn's being, where a clone gets to become a real boy and maybe not pity himself for coming to be in a way that he had no control over at all.]

[daemonized]

[And yet, despite all the new opportunities that exist in this world, despite the scourge gone asleep in his veins and the feeling of mortality once more sinking deep into his bones, Ardyn remains shackled to the past. The wrongs against him keep him burdened there, having long resigned himself to adhering to the path the astrals had carved out for him -- if it meant having his revenge, if it meant fulfilling his purpose, then so be it.

Therefore-]

What, do you consider this place a respite from all of that?

[The implication being that Ardyn doesn't seem to.]

[mercurio]

?? like it isn't?
it's like being forced on a holiday! not even a single chocobo in sight and the astrals certainly don't have any kind of jurisdiction over what happens to us here or whatever occurs in this place

it's not like we can do anything eos-related right now even if we wanted to

[prompto is a 2 year old toddler in the face of the ancient life ardyn lives,,]

[daemonized]

[Just a child, speaking to an old immortal.]

Holiday?

[A dumb child.]

How nice it must be to be so... willfully ignorant. This place, a vacation from the hand of fate back on our star? More like it only forestalls the inevitable. Every friend you make, every new experience wrought by your own hands, is only transient and impermanent. This place is temporary and should be treated as a temporary pit-stop on the way back to what's waiting for the both of us.

That anyone should have sent us here, granting us false hope? Making us believe that we might find solace so departed from home, only for it to eventually be torn away? (Because it will be torn away.) Even I'd not be so cruel.

You're fooling yourself if you think it's anything else. Or are you that afraid to return home and face the reality of the situation?

[mercurio]

eventually could mean years you know

just because it's temporary doesn't mean that anything that we experience while here isn't true and holds its own value
i don't want to see it as something detrimental to my experience existing, whether back home or here

[skirting around a lot of ardyn said...why try to argue with him. the both of them as stubborn in their own convictions anyway]

[daemonized]

Why give anything meaning when it's to be wrested away from you, the moment we return to Eos? Or are you a glutton for punishment?

[Or are you instead, very subtly, easy to miss, projecting a little, Ardyn?]

Tell me, do you consider this experience one that's been good for you?

[mercurio]

[maybe he is a glutton for punishment. maybe he is, in ways, afraid of the fact that he'll return to eos only to lose everything he has--back there and here. the idea of returning in and of itself is terrifying, nevertheless, for countless of reasons.]

[so he sticks, instead, to the second question]

any experience can be good as long as you see it that way
it could be worse

but i'm learning a lot too

[daemonized]

[Ardyn has always believed that a lack of an answer is telling in its own right. It speaks volumes more than anything that could've been written. Prompto is too uncomfortable to answer, which means he's given it some thought before now. That alone is satisfying to know.

So, the second question it is.]

And what are you learning, exactly?

[mercurio]

things you're more than likely to consider a waste of time

[talking with ardyn is always weird. prompto always expects him to be mocking, and so ends up catching himself before he keeps on as if it were a most normal conversation with just any other person. it's not any other person.]

also, as long as you're here, the prophecy can't be fulfilled
guess you got no other choice but to make an effort in this place

how's your new job treating you

[daemonized]

We’ll see how much of an effort I actually need to put in. The rest of our group seems more than content to flit about, investigating this and that, arguing with each other, that sort of thing.

The new job is a bit like the old one. [He means when he was Chancellor.] Meetings after meetings. Looking at policies and how they might change. Nothing you’d care about.

[mercurio]

[ardyn keeps saying the same stuff... his disinterest is too real. prompto, on the other hand, keeps picking at the man's words for some damn reason.]

you know you're in a really useful position, right? for as much as you don't care about investigating and doing things like that, i think you're in the highest job position any of us have

without trying too which is like the comical bit

you're still gonna just be a bystander?

[daemonized]

I never said I was just going to stand by and watch. I said we will see how much effort I need to put in. I've already spoken with another Displaced in a political position, too, and we might collaborate on how our new jobs can unearth information that was otherwise unavailable to us.

[And that's the truth. But Ardyn, to avoid being too conceding, adds:]

Or maybe we won't! Who knows?

[mercurio]

you're the most reassuring person in existence, did you know that?

[ARDYN...]

[daemonized]

How kind of you to say.

[ :) ]

[mercurio]

[he knows that ardyn knows he was being sarcastic... ugh]

you're welcome?

[ugh!!] anyway, i think i'm gonna pass on aiding you in the political ambit
you seem to know what you're doing and i got other stuff i wanna be doing in any case

enjoy the halloween celebrations i guess