Pleroma: Memory/Voice

[locumstudentesquire]

[OOC: this goes out to all Pleroma, a couple of hours after the vision in the skies over Venera mentioned in the wrap up post for Event 3 comes and goes.]

[There's a chance that Ryunosuke's voice may be familiar to you, even if you haven't spoken to him at length. If you attended the mingle party in Greentruth or were present at the Lodestone when the new arrivals started filtering in at the start of the month, there's a decent chance he has at least introduced himself to you. In any case, he identifies himself again now.]

Um... This is Naruhodo speaking. I hope you all can hear me... I. I'm afraid I have some bad news to share.

[There's a pause before he continues; this is obviously pretty difficult for him to relay. Champion legacy Pleroma in particular will get a strong sense of his feelings throughout this message, from his anger and grief to his overwhelming sense of helplessness and guilt. He's trying very hard to reign in his emotions, but this is clearly something he is feeling a Lot of Things about.]

Some hours ago, Ser Estinien Wyrmblood was... Struck down, by one of the Kenoma. I'm told there is a chance he may be revived; his shard was unharmed in the attack and was retrieved by one of our own, and is being attended to now.

...I wish that was all there was to say, but. His... destruction... It triggered something that I think we should all be made aware of. The violence deeply disturbed an entity who we believe to be the thing responsible for the contagion we've been investigating. It appeared before several of us who were present at the time and... Frankly, I don't know what it did to the Kenoma responsible, but it seemed to strike him down in retaliation. Ah... It may be easier if I just show you.

[Images come through the connection now, shown through what is presumably Ryunosuke's own point of view. There's no sound included with this memory, like he was too overwhelmed by what he was seeing at the time to register the noises around him, but it starts with a view of the sky above Venera: a difficult to perceive mass of wings, a creature that somehow manages to appear to be both impossibly high above the buildings and far, far too close to the Aions for comfort.

The "camera" shifts down then, over to the Kenoma known as "M"-- though he may be difficult to identify, given the way the contagion has ravaged him. He seems to be shouting defiantly at the entity, face turned upwards, while two of his comrades, Kaeya and Eustace, stand nearby. A third Kenoma, Luo Binghe, can be seen watching from further away, lurking in the near distance. Ryu's focus isn't on them, though; it's on M. One moment he's shouting, then the next, there's a blinding flash of light from the sky. When it clears, M has collapsed to the ground; dead or unconscious, it's not immediately clear.

The image goes hazy, and transitions to what is presumably a few minutes later. The angle has changed, the POV far lower, as if Ryunosuke was flat on the ground at the time. He's now looking at Abel Nightroad, who holds Estinien's shard in his hands. But it's not really just him standing there. There is a mass of angelic wings visible behind him, and most terrifying of all, a pair of ghostly arms that appear to be reaching through him to try and hold Estinien's shard. Himeka Sui and Alphinaud Leveilleur run into frame, one after the other, to place their hands on the shard as well. They both appear to be speaking to the entity, but Ryunosuke has opted not to include their words out of respect for their privacy.

Sound only comes in after that: What is apparently the voice of the entity, addressing the lot of them.]

"Keep your promise... Your word... Live this truth... Or when my time comes again... I will reign... Reign eternal... I will see it done."

[Ryunosuke's vision jolts; something has appeared on one of his hands, which he lifts to investigate. A faintly glowing mark has appeared there, which those well informed about the Legacies may recognize as the mark of the Innocent. When he looks up again, the entity is vanishing, leaving the group of Pleroma behind to look on in awe.

The image stops. Ryunosuke's voice comes back in; he sounds exhausted from having to relive all of that.]

If you have questions-- as I'm sure you do, I certainly would-- I can do my best to answer them.

And... Hopefully I still have some of your attention, there's one other thing I need to say that's very important. Yuya Sakaki, he... Seems to have succumbed, to the illness. Turned completely to stone. I don't even know if he can still be saved. I hope he can. I wanted to help him, to gather assistance to see if we could cure him but-- I wound up afflicted for a time as well. And then all that happened, and now... Now I'm not even in Venera anymore. Please, if you can... See if you can help him. He should be easy to find. He's certainly not going anywhere.

[One last image comes through: the area where one may find Yuya's petrified form. He can only hope someone will recognize it and go to investigate.]

Comments

[passio]

[ there are other things to parse out and deal with on his own time, including the fact that someone died and the result was an unholy abomination, but this is the first thing that’s come to him, and it’s harder to hold back when they’re speaking through their minds. ]

That’s good.

[ there’s no voice, but the relief is still somehow palpable, as if it’s vibrating through the words themselves. it takes dextera a moment to think of what to say next, as if he’s searching for words that don’t seem callous to the people harmed on their side of things. makoto probably had no justifiable reason to do what he did, and dextera can’t defend him in that regard, but… ]

It’s better if no more people get hurt than those already injured. Even our enemies.

[locumstudentesquire]

[From Ryunosuke's end now, there are a lot of conflicting feelings all snarled together and contradicting one another in reaction to that. He'd watched as one man smashed another's head clean off his shoulders, so of course he's going to be feeling some pretty negative things about the perpetrator. That said...]

I... I do actually agree with you on that.

[The unspoken but easily felt half of that thought being that it's hard for him to admit it.

Whatever M's reasons were for his actions... Ryunosuke can't even begin to try and parse them out, as the only information he has regarding a motive is what he'd felt during the non-consensual, inadvertently broadcasted communion, which had been even more traumatizing to him than the sight of the killing would have been alone. The emotional blowback he'd gotten from both victim and killer is a memory sickens him to even try to recall, let alone make sense of. It's easy to brand what he experienced as being the actions of a monster, and not a person.

For better or for worse, Dextera's contribution, and his palpable relief, draws him to an uncomfortable yet important realization: that even killers can be people who matter to someone.]

I take it... That he's a friend of yours? M?

[Very little judgement, for what it's worth; mainly just a desire to understand.]

[passio]

[ dextera thinks makoto would protest being called his friend, but makoto isn’t here to listen to the claim, nor does dextera think this is the venue to lay out all the reasons that that’s a complicated question with a more complicated answer. ]

Yes, he is.

[ and there’s another pause, taken to wonder how much more he should say. ]

I don’t think what he did was right. And I can’t stop anyone from seeking revenge. But I [ the words stop, as if dextera has come to a loss, before they continue a moment later— ] can worry for him, too.

The war being fought doesn’t have to be ours.

[locumstudentesquire]

[Again, the conflicting emotion coming through from Ryunosuke is labyrinthine, almost impossible to untangle. He's feeling a lot of things all at once; sympathy for Dextera, anger and confusion... While he knows one can't always help one's own feelings, he also struggles to imagine having a friend do something as heinous as what M, did and still being able to call them a friend afterwards.

(He briefly tries to put it into perspective by thinking about how he'd react if he'd found out Kazuma had done something like this, which turns out to be a pointless exercise. If Kazuma had been capable of such a thing... Well then he simply wouldn't have been the man Ryunosuke had admired, now would he?)

Ultimately he's just, too tired and raw to engage in the Makoto discourse further, so he decides to just leave it be for now, focusing on Dex's last statement instead.]

I certainly would prefer it not be... At the very least, I too would like to see violence and revenge kept to a minimum. But I'm also not so certain we have much of a choice regarding our involvement, do we? Not if we want to see our own worlds safe from harm.

[passio]

[ everyone keeps telling him that, and they all seem to truly believe there’s no choice. dextera feels as if those involved are underestimating the power of simply giving up; if the world ends after all, at least they won’t have spent their final moments in a fruitless struggle.

but every time dextera thinks to let himself drop into that despairing mindset, he feels the warm light of the pleroma attempt to keep his head above water, and he takes a moment to consider how he really feels. ]

The followers are only followers. It’s the Regent we need to address.

[locumstudentesquire]

On that, I think we can agree. The Regent should be our priority.... I'd prefer the Aions under them not be harmed, if it can be avoided.

[ He's just not sure anymore, how feasible that avoidance is. ]

[passio]

[ although dextera is presenting all his thoughts through text, there seems to be a pause, and then a sigh of relief that he hasn’t accidentally shot himself in the foot in terms of intra-faction relationships.

he just doesn’t want makoto punished, as impossible and insane as that sounds. ]

If it can be avoided. [ he echoes it, in agreement. ] Do you think there are other creatures like this?

[locumstudentesquire]

[That is where their thoughts on this diverge again, or at least where things get stickier for Ryunosuke. Or... Will get stickier, when he gets it together enough to actually lend some critical thought to this mess. He sees the situation with Makoto as something separate from his opinions on how they should approach dealing with the other Kenoma in the future. In his eyes, Makoto does deserve some sort of punishment for what he did; Ryunosuke was witness to his actions, after all. If Makoto were to deny them for some reason, even he'd have trouble giving the man the benefit of the doubt. And providing that benefit to people who have been accused of violent crime is literally his job.

But-- though this would be especially difficult to admit in his current emotional state-- he can still acknowledge that witnessing something doesn't mean he has all the facts. He doesn't know what Makoto's motivations were. He doesn't know if he even in control of himself. He was clearly afflicted by a disease that was well known for making Aions act out in delusion. All that should be taken into account. And if he truly is guilty, the punishment should be handled rationally. Not enacted in a moment of revenge fueled rage.

In essence: Makoto committed a crime. Of that, Ryunosuke has no doubt. Where it gets murky for him is the actual definition of that crime, and how Makoto should be held responsible for it. In his own world, they would look to the courts for answers. In Horos, they don't have that luxury... Or Pleroma don't, at least. Being lawless rebels on the run and all...

But all that will probably come to him later, when he's trying to rest and recover and inevitably gets kept awake by all his thoughts about this. For now, he's trying to focus on other matters, while he waits anxiously to hear if Estinien's revival is successful.]

I couldn't say for certain, but I'm afraid it's not impossible that we might see others of its ilk... Evidence so far suggests it rose in power in direct relation to the Innocent's Moon. Cid says that there were no other creatures of a similar sort reported in the previous Moons that he'd experienced... It's possible this was simply a fluke.

[Or maybe it's just the start of a very troublesome trend.]

[passio]

[ eager to get away from the topic of makoto, dextera continues to push ryunosuke—who has thus far proven himself the reasonable sort even if their immediate loyalties lie in different places—into something productive for the both of them. ]

I was here during the Lover’s Moon. Nothing bad happened. Nothing that might cause a creature like that to manifest. But if it came because someone was hurt, we’re bound to see more like it.

And if an “Innocent” is capable of power like that, I don’t know if we’re prepared for anything else. I wonder what the Regent’s forces think.

[locumstudentesquire]

I was wondering the same... They're likely to be far better informed than we are, what with the Regent's resources at their fingertips.

[MUST BE NICE! NOT HAVING TO STRUGGLE AND SCROUNGE!]

We might do well to have someone look further into the legacies. What the traits are of each, and what sort of influence they wield. I suppose there's no guarantee it would help, but it would at least help keep us from being completely in the dark...

[passio]

I’ve heard stories about the Lover. I can’t imagine them doing something like this, or asking something to. But when we were in the Valley of the Innocent, it didn’t seem like the “Innocent” was could hurt us, either.

[ they don’t know for sure what relation specifically that creature has to the innocent legacy, but context clues suggest that it’s related somehow, in a cosmic, meaningful way. perhaps it’s the innocent themselves, perhaps it’s a pet—dextera can’t pin it down and won’t try.

but he still can’t imagine the lover, his own patron, being capable of harm. ]

[locumstudentesquire]

...The Valley of the Innocent? I don't believe I've heard anyone mention that before...

[He's also curious about the stories about the Lover, but. One thing at a time, and this sounds more immediately relevant.]

[passio]

I think that’s what it was called.

When we escaped the Regent’s forces, we ended up there. It was peaceful. Maybe in retrospect, it was too peaceful. No one could do any harm there. I tried. But it was nice. It was full of life.

[locumstudentesquire]

Wait, you... tried to do harm there?

[What,,]

[passio]

[ ??? ]

I was hungry.

[locumstudentesquire]

[???????????

Dextera, what???

If Ryunosuke wasn't utterly exhausted both mentally and emotionally right now, he'd probably dig into that further. But as things stand, he's spent the last several days having highlights like 'being assaulted in an alleyway by a strange kenoma' to 'watching a dude get murdered' to 'watching a 14 year old turn into a rock', so.]

Ah. Well. Th-that's... Fair, then, I suppose.

[No more weirdness for him today, thank you.]

[passio]

[ dextera has no more weirdness to offer besides that, anyway. ]

I wouldn’t do it again. Even if I could.

[locumstudentesquire]

That's... That's good to know.

[Ryu still has NO idea what he's talking about but he's just gonna roll with it.]

I might like to know more about this valley of yours... At some point in the future...

[When he's able to get his brain work again.]

[passio]

[ obviously, ryunosuke still has a lot on his plate. even if he hadn’t been directly involved, he witnessed a lot, and anyone would need time to process such a thing. ]

Any time. But I only know a little more than you.