and for the dark; and for the light

[founderinglight]

Who: Izunia and you! Especially if you are Ardyn or Maddie.
What: Birthday bros! And a few other conversations. Also, Armiger practice.
Where: Rise kitchens, library, a few other places.
When: The last few days of August and the first week of September.
Warnings: Murdergame discussion likely in Ardyn's thread; child abuse/neglect discussion likely in Maddie's.

[Aug 30; Text -> Kitchens, closed to Ardyn]

[Early afternoon comes a message from Ardyn's least favorite twin - ]

If you're still willing to participate in birthday cake production and related activities, I'll be settling up in the kitchens here in about an hour.

[Always leave him room to back out - truthfully Izunia is still extremely surprised that Ardyn agreed to the idea in the first place. But he'll be at the kitchens at the appointed hour, idly scrubbing pans and loading the dishwasher while he waits, very much not starting on the cake itself until Ardyn arrives.]

[Aug 30; Kitchens/common room, later]

[It appears that someone has set up... a surprising quantity of nicely decorated cake out? And there's also ice cream cake in the freezer. How'd that happen.

If you fail to run into the culprit, you might discover Izunia sprawled across one of the common room couches, a plate with no less than three kinds of cake on it. Most of them are the well-decorated ones, but there's also a very plain one that just says CONGRATULATIONS, YOU'VE AGED on it.

He's also keeping a particular eye out for Maddie if she passes through.]

[Library, Aug 28-Sept 3rd minus the 30th]

[Outside of his birthday celebrations - lowkey as they are - Izunia can mostly be found in the library this week. As usual, a good portion of what he can be caught reading is magic-related texts, but there's also a genuinely shocking number of children's and YA novels getting stacked up next to him, sorted into a series of piles. He seems to be churning through them in about half an hour to an hour a piece, so it's... getting to be a lot by the time he packs it in for the day each day, even with the usual amount of Nap.]

[Beach, Sept 4th, night]

[It's a very far way off from the Station that the flashes of blue light can be seen, and likely to very unusual to those who recognize their source. It's hardly just the trails and afterimages of warping and phasing that hang in the air, though. The shapes of Royal Arms hanging in the air, but also the orbs of light that are seemingly his to conjure now -

It's rare to see Izunia push himself, usually confident in his abilities, but it seems like he's doing so now. And it's suitably impressive, but something about his posture seems unsatisfied...

Hopefully, you weren't so foolish as to approach without a light, though, because if you hadn't heard, the guy flinging explosive balls of light and a variety of magical weapons around is Jumpy in the Dark.

And much later that night, you might catch him returning to the station, physically exhausted but with the usual air of warm gentleness about him, and rather a lot of sand still clinging to his clothes.]

Comments

[founderinglight]

Is that what happened to your leg?

[Hello he might not have an eye for twin swaps anymore but he still notices incredibly small details like that.]

[burninglight]

Wh- [That did enough to snap him out of his thoughts, Ardyn taking a second or two to process the question.] Oh--right.

[He reached down to pull the leg of his pants up a few inches, enough to show a faint scar from a puncture wound in his shin.]

Would you believe electrified crossbows are a thing that some lunatic decided was necessary, because apparently they are. I would have killed at least one guard with the kitchen knives I was stuck using if I hadn't missed that one. [...He'd had the Armiger space and basically nothing else, so improvised weapons it was.] Nanites took care of the worst of it, but I could hardly walk at all for a couple days. Is it still that obvious?

[founderinglight]

It wouldn't have been if I hadn't watched your season in the first place. Your lack of limp there was far more obvious than the difference between this limp and the one you had.

[burninglight]

[Beat.]

My...what, sorry?

[founderinglight]

[Izunia just.

Stares at him for a moment.]

You had a limp for two thousand years and then just forgot about it?!

[burninglight]

I had a muted sense of pain, how the fuck would I notice something like that?!

...Shiva's multiform bullshit, either it was psychosomatic or Intergal fucked this body up somewhere.

[founderinglight]

You definitely had a limp, far worse than the one you have now. Hip injury, significantly impacted your range of movement with that leg.

[A sigh.]

Honestly, it's fairly low on the level of bullshit that's happened.

[burninglight]

Nina, you incompetent underfed treant-...programmed fake Starscourge and missed something like that, how stupid.

[Ardyn pressed a hand to his head.]

Never mind. Should I keep going?

[founderinglight]

You cannot possibly be complaining about having a full range of movement on that side.

By all means. Pass those eggs over here when you're done with them, if you would.

[burninglight]

I can and will complain about anything and everything I damn well please.

[just sliding those eggs along the counter instead of chucking them at you.]

Regardless. The others came back to get us, obviously. After Junpei's brilliant- [eyeroll] -method of attracting attention, they got us out and we escaped--but they weren't alone. In the chaos they'd met someone else with reason to hate the network, a scientist that had hosted a rather charming children's science program. His daughter--an AI he'd named Wilhelmina--was stolen and reset by Intergal, made to run the space station for Xander's season and renamed C.E.C.E.

...In other words, he was all for fucking over the network, and let us hide out at his mansion. That's where we stayed for a while--recovering, trying to function and figure out what our next move would be. It wasn't long after that we saw trailers for Noctis' season, and once it broadcast we found out it had been filmed more or less at the same time as our own.

[founderinglight]

They what?!

[So, okay, Ardyn, here's the thing that even you, ex-Champion Patriarch you are, don't have over your brother.

Izunia kind of. Has a complex. About taking care of kids.

And so for a moment, at the description of what happened to Mina, he's absolutely beyond livid, enough that he has to put the bowl he's working with down for a moment.

And, in fact, he steps away from Ardyn entirely, to the other side of the kitchen, and for a brief moment his full Armiger manifests, the spin of crystalline blue weapons going fast around him. One, two, three rotations - and then it winks out again, and he takes a deep breath before turning back Ardyn's direction.]

How utterly loathsome.

[burninglight]

[Ardyn flinched at the outburst, from surprise rather than expecting to be struck by anything. But he did watch his brother carefully, tense at the sight of the Armiger but not daring to move or relax even slightly until the phantom swords were gone.]

...They're alright now. She answers to 'Mina' these days. I even built her a custom frame so she wouldn't have to keep using the odd little robot body Xander's group apparently came up with for her. Integrated hardlight generator, rocket boosters, anything she wanted.

[Small mercies, at least.]

It goes without saying, but Nina was a very, very unwell person.

[founderinglight]

Good.

[He... inhales, and then exhales.]

Sorry, I... You might have noticed by now, but the mistreatment of children is... something of an issue for me.

[burninglight]

I wasn't exactly thrilled about it either, so I suppose I can understand.

[outpaced as he was right now, he still earned his second title]

We met Noctis' crew not very long after their season's conclusion. it had been...a few months by then, I think? He'd watched the same season you did, so luckily it didn't come down to the fight in front of Spacebucks that I was afraid it would.

[because he was deadass terrified noctis was gonna beat the shit out of him in the parking lot]

Now listen, because you'll like this part. In the time between us blowing up the mansion and running into his group, Noctis and his surviving group became a crew of space pirates. Literal pirates, in space, with laser swords running around making Intergal's life as inconvenient as possible.

He's the best nephew ever.

[founderinglight]

[Just wait until you've helped raise them, dadman. A couple years taking care of Ruu and you'll get it even more.

Izunia listens and - laughs at the description.]

Oh, I can see it all too keenly. He truly deserves to be my favorite.

[burninglight]

Being absurd amounts of trouble runs deep in the bloodline and I'm terribly proud of him.

[The smile started fading just a little, as Ardyn sorted through what came after that.]

...A bit of time after that, Nina eventually announced the upcoming 'fifth and final season'. I think we all knew then and there that we were screwed, but there really was nothing we could do. Even if we ran across the universe, they'd still find us. [Ardyn tapped his forearm, where there'd once been a PIP and now was a phoenix tattoo under his sleeve.] Nina always knew where we were; none of our efforts to escape or hide out ever mattered for much of anything.

Ultimately we were just stuck waiting, and that's when they reran the first season...one said to have been unpopular because of its ending. It hadn't gone as planned, and everyone except for Nina herself and two Champions died.

...Including Prompto and Lady Lunafreya.

[founderinglight]

I did see them on the volume cover.

[It's not a surprise to him, he did look through the extra materials, but - ]

I can only imagine that Noctis was in quite a state.

[burninglight]

It was...unpleasant. Mostly for him.

[just gonna gloss over all that g u i l t of his own]

After that...after that we got a message from that contact again, Jaycee. He tipped us off to Intergal moving some Airlocked 'assets' through a spaceport. And around the same time it sounded as though Cece--the intern, not the AI--had been captured by them as well.

[He did a very good job of not sounding angry, mostly because he was brushing panic-causing topics instead.]

So we split up again. We knew it was all a fucking trap, I knew there was no getting out of it. But what choice did we have, if there was even the smallest chance of salvaging some part of the situation? If it was even remotely possible that we could fight back, we...we had to try.

[founderinglight]

[He's seen you around Prompto here, Ardyn, he's not stupid.]

To try at the chance of a miracle, against hiding for however long it took for them to come collect you? You don't need to justify it, Ardyn. I understand.

[Time to do the part of the ice cream thing where we boil it before freezing it. How's that, man.]

[burninglight]

[he's fine he's great he's struggling to focus, a normal day]

...it wasn't Jaycee's fault. He'd been forced into baiting us there. I don't-... [Ardyn shook his head, trailing off briefly.] I don't...remember a lot of what happened. I know it went badly, and fast. I remember Kip shooting at Nina, because he was the only one she couldn't disarm due to not wearing a PIP in the first place. I told him to get out and look after Junpei and Yuuri, then-...she knocked us out. And I don't-

[Ardyn had gone very pale, struggling to maintain composure as he tried to continue.]

I don't remember. I don't remember if I woke up between then and later, I don't know what the hell they did to get everything out of the Armiger and disable it, but it was my fault--

[Something cracked, Ardyn stepping back and pulling a chair out of said Armiger to drop into, doubling over gripping his own arms.]

...it was my fault. We were separated, and when Kip broke the rest of them out they came back for me instead of getting the hell out. I lied and told them everything would be fine before we all split up, Xander was shot and Kip died in my arms because they came back for me--

[founderinglight]

[As soon as it becomes obvious that Ardyn is struggling, Izunia snaps the heat of the stove off and abandons the cooking to focus on him. After he drops into the chair, Izunia is right by his side, his hands open in offer but stopped shy of touching. He'll try with words first to break through.]

Ardyn. Come back. You're a universe way from there; there's nothing she can do to you here.

[burninglight]

[Ardyn took a shaking breath, hands pried from his shoulders to move to his head instead. Inhale, exhale--rattling and unsteady, but breathing at least.]

...

[founderinglight]

Ardyn.

[A hesitant hand on his elbow.]

Come on, with me now.

[burninglight]

Don't-

[Ardyn flinched back, that time out of reflex.]

...Don't. Please. Just tell me where we're going.

[founderinglight]

We're not going anywhere, Ardyn.

[Keep his voice even, keep repeating the name - you're Ardyn, you're his brother, take a deep breath and come out of your head.

In spite of the flinch, he doesn't remove his hand, not until he's sure that Ardyn is here.]

Come on, deep breaths.