and the hope of morning

[founderinglight]

Who: Izunia and you! And a kitty. (First prompt closed to Ardyn)
What: TWIN FIGHT TWIN FIGHT and general catchall. And a kitty.
When: Twinfight: Morning of Tues the 1st. Everything else, whenever whenever after that.
Where: The beach; around the Station
Warnings: All the hecking warnings on the twinfight.

Closed to Ardyn

[It takes some time to find his brother; as a result, people might see Izunia doing the "think murder and walk" thing for a half an hour or so around the Station before he concludes that Ardyn isn't there and heads elsewhere. Those with a careful eye will notice more than just his stance being different; he's clean-shaven and decked out in full black coat and boots, including a black tricorn hat with an impressive plume and a bird skull of some sort attached to it. If the growing heat of the mid-to-late morning bothers him, it's hard to tell.

Those who are more used to the casually-dressed, laid-back man usually seen around the Station could well be surprised to see this side of him. Today, the Founder King walks.

And so it is eventually out of the Station that he roams, and there spots the figure down on the beach from the cliffside. A thrown dagger hits the sand, leaving behind it the blue trail of a very long warp, and Izunia plucks it from the sand before crossing the last few yards to his brother.]

Ardyn. If you have some time, might I have a word?

[menacing]

May 2-4, aka the Heat Wave, around the Station

[Come the heat wave itself, however, Izunia is dressed at least a little more practically for the weather, though still in teeshirts and black pants. He can be found in all his usual places - the low-numbers kitchen, the deck, and the library - during the day, as well as sitting in the Annex underlevel on a blanket to enjoy the breeze in the cooler underground cavern. He's not completely immune to heat, only mostly.

Those who hang around the outside of the station at night, when things have cooled off a little more, will find him either on the deck still or out on the sand behind the stables, working with some sort of light magic as he turns it into different colors from his usual blue, and, eventually, into the shapes of letters and simple symbols. It seems like he's having quite a bit of fun, at least.]

Also May 2-4, also around the Station but more common room/kitchens/his room

[What's that sound? What's that flash in the corner of your eye?

It's a cat - the size of a full grown feline already, though her proportions mark her as not yet an adult - with a dark blue collar and a ringing bell.

And she is having the zoomies around the residential floor after escaping her dad's room. Nyoom, off she goes!

Or perhaps you're sitting in the kitchens or the common room when she finally wears herself out a bit, and you've been approached for Pettings, Please. Or perhaps you have food. Or perhaps your shoelaces have just become her new toy in place of randomly zooming around.

However it is you encounter this fluffy little monster, you can be sure that Izunia is not too far behind, led by the sound of her bell.]

May 5th, Night

[Once the heat wave breaks, it's finally time to make use of one of the Station's new features. With all the windows open to the breeze and the sound of the storm, Izunia is sprawled out in the hot tub in a pair of black trunks and nothing else. The way his head is tipped back, it's easy to mistake him for asleep, but the sound of someone else arriving makes him glance in the direction of the door. It's still fairly easy to tell him apart from Ardyn, though, if you know what to look for - blue eyes, still clean-shaven, and a black tattoo on his chest, the majority of it blurred by the bubbling water except for the two crows flying highest in the direction of his neck.]

Evening.

Comments

[founderinglight]

[He'll take it in exchange for yanking and slamming you back into the sand. What happened to his hat? Whatever, Armiger it wherever it is, he can worry about that later.]

I loved you, you stupid bastard! You and only you! Fuck the kingdom, fuck the gods, I would have done anything for you!

[His voice is strained and almost to a sob, except he's still so angry. He exhales hard, and drops his voice down to a more normal volume, hands still wrapped in Ardyn's collar.]

I loved you. In fucked up, blind, stupid ways that were the end of both of us, but gods, I loved you. For two thousand years, I loved you, even as the Ring emptied me out of everything else and left me a shadow of myself.

1/2

[burninglight]

[For a long moment there was just the sound of ragged breathing that sounded almost like the start of half-restrained sobs. Ardyn's violet hair was more disheveled than usual, hanging in his eyes as he refused to look at his twin brother.]

[It was his fault, screamed some dark and distant corner of Ardyn's mind dyed in hatred and shrieking vengeance. His brother's fault that Ardyn had forgotten how to trust people, refused to believe love and loyalty existed as more than lies ending in betrayal. His brother's fault that Ardyn felt genuine mortal terror in confinement, in being isolated and genuinely surprised that anyone would ever have come back for him.]

[Ardyn himself knew he had a hand in how he'd ended up--in keeping his secret and suffering in silence--knew the Accursed needed to be dealt with. What he was had to be destroyed, locked away, anything-]

[burninglight]

[-...but he still jerked his head forward to collide hard with Izunia's, snarling viciously past the tears in his eyes. His voice turned to something dark, a growl like the voice of a daemon fueled by fury and hatred.]

YOU CALL THAT 'LOVE'?! You tortured me, you abandoned me, and you dare look at me as if you have any right to say you loved me in doing so?!

cw: suicidal ideation

[founderinglight]

[Fuck, that hurts, and for a moment all Izunia can do is hiss in pain.

A week ago, he would have backed down from such accusations. A week ago, he would havelet Ardyn have it.

But that was last week.]

Yes. I did. I loved you to destruction and damn near followed you down. Getting revenge - hurting the thing that took you away from me - was the only thing that stopped me.

It was blind, it was stupid, but it was always love. Love is the only thing that can birth a hatred such as that.

[This week - this week, he will stand his ground. He may never make up for his mistakes, but he will not sit back and let anyone say that it was not from a place of love that he made them.

Not even Ardyn.]

[burninglight]

This is your fault. Yours as much as it was mine. It's because of you--it's because of you I went that mad in the first place!

1/2

[founderinglight]

Yes, it was. I'll not fucking deny that, Ardyn.

But I was also pretty fucking nuts at the time, myself. I couldn't handle it, I couldn't handle -

[founderinglight]

[He stops for a moment, taking in a shaky breath.

There's no point in asking. Ardyn has already confessed that he doesn't remember.]

Thirty-six executions... And one accident. One single, horrible accident, that played so perfectly to prophecy that it may as well have been written in a script.

I'm sorry. That it happened, and that it's taken me so long to say so. I suppose I always thought I would never get the chance.

[burninglight]

...Let go of me. Right now. I will not tell you twice.

[founderinglight]

[...There's a moment, and then Izunia releases Ardyn's collar and rolls off to the side, sand sticking to his coat.]

[burninglight]

[Ardyn sat up from where he'd been knocked down, breathing hard and running a hand through his hair. He wanted to just get up and bolt as fast as warping would carry him,but he found he couldn't move or even speak for a long few moments.]

[He didn't remember much, but he remembered enough of that day and the resulting executions that bringing it up was setting off that cold sensation of encroaching panic that so often took up residence in Ardyn's chest. And it wasn't something that was easy to get a handle on--not on his own, not without someone or even just Luscinia nearby to help ground him in reality.]

[Yet against all better judgement, when he finally could speak:]

...what are you talking about?

[founderinglight]

...The first time. Before the executions. The first time you died.

It was an accident. It was... nobody's fault at all, really.

[He stays where he is, looking up at the sky, for a moment longer before sitting up himself.]

...You know how sleep paralysis works, right? Keeps people from chasing dreams or attacking nightmares.

[burninglight]

Get to the fucking point, Izunia.

[founderinglight]

Fuck you, it's hard to talk about, I'll get there when I damn well please.

[If that's surprisingly snappish, well, he's already tired and he hasn't hardly begun. It hurts to relive, even enough for a brief telling.]

I was sick. The Scourge, far enough along for the fever dreams and hallucinations to set in, by the time you arrived. And of course, you healed it, because what else would you have done?

My body recovered before my mind. I was 'awake,' able to move but not yet lucid - the reverse of sleep paralysis. And I thought the shape standing over my bed was a monster, and struck true.

...No one ever talks about how dangerous it is to always have a lethal weapon just a will away.

[burninglight]

...Convenient. Why should I believe you?

[founderinglight]

Convenient, he says, about the worst day of my life.

[It's a muttered aside but he doesn't seem to care if Ardyn hears it or not. At least now he isn't biting back the little angers.

Quite a change, really.]

Is there anything I could say or do that would, if your heart is set against believing?

[Rhetorical. They both know there is not. There is only Izunia's word against the absence in Ardyn's memories, as there probably always will be.

He presses a hand to his chest - not against the scarf dangling there, sand clinging to it, but directly over his heart as though pained.]

I have a tattoo over the spot, a panic reaction to magical healing, and my words. That is all the evidence I can offer you. Just like every other account of our past I could give, it is a truth with proof long gone.

...Unless you happen to be carrying Gilgamesh in your Armiger somewhere, considering he was the one who found me after.

[burninglight]

...

[‘None would have suffered the scourge sitting on the throne. It would have been the death of all.’]

[Ardyn bit his tongue rather than smap something else, hand pressed to the back of his neck.]

So what do you want. You expect me to forgive you after what you did, just because the first was a mistake?

[founderinglight]

Have I asked forgiveness of you even once, Ardyn?

[He hasn't, and unlike when he said much the same in the forest, this time annoyance shows through.]

I'm not going to beg and plead and debase myself in front of a phone camera for the entire station to see. If you're waiting on that, you've another two thousand years and more to go.

I want... acknowledgment. That we both fucked up and hurt each other. That I'm not actually the image of me you've spent so long hating. That you see me as a person instead of a nightmare or a monster.

[burninglight]

I don’t care enough about you to want your humiliation anymore.

[That much, he let himself snap angrily as he dusted sand out of his hair and adjusted his scarf.]

...I already knew you were right. I’ve known for longer than I want to admit. I needed to die, I get it, but gods damn it, I’ve every right to be angry about what you did.

[founderinglight]

That's not the same thing, Ardyn. Whether it was a thing that needed to be done or not has no bearing on whether you see me as a person.

You're not seeing me when you say that. It's like you're not even listening.

[burninglight]

...

[Ardyn didn't trust himself to answer without turning the whole thing into more of an argument So instead he just stayed quiet and elected to let his brother keep talking, if that was how this was going to go.]

[founderinglight]

[You already had a fist fight in the sand once, how much more of an argument can it be?

The lack of response just seems to get Izunia more riled up, actually.]

I want to be seen. I want to be acknowledged for who I am, yes, even though I was a terrible fuck up. I lost my bloody mind and thought the best way to keep your memory alive was to take your fucking place and I kept that up for two thousand years, and I am so goddamn tired of masks. I am so goddamn tired of not being seen for who I am, mistakes and all.

Look at me, Ardyn.

[burninglight]

[Taking a slow and measured breath, Ardyn pushed his hair from his eyes only for it to fall back into place--he fixed his brother with an exhausted stare that suggested the elder twin was barely even managing to stay in the present moment.]

...I'm tired, Izunia. I've hated you for two thousand years, long enough that I can't remember what it was like to do anything else. I know I...I remembered something when my memories were reset, but as the rest of it returned whatever I knew of the life we had as mortals faded like background noise.

I'm tired of hating you. I don't even think I want to anymore. But I look at you and all I can see now is the catalyst of my own insanity.

[founderinglight]

Then keep fucking looking.

[It's basically snapped. He's letting himself be angry and it feels fucking good, honestly, but better those few minutes before when Ardyn wasn't just taking it.]

If I can look at you and see anything but the Scourge-driven monster who corrupted the Wall, who twisted me and half the family besides to his will when I thought I was safe, then you can damn well meet me halfway and look at something other than the delusion of Izunia that only exists inside your head!

[burninglight]

And how nice it must have been, to feel safe however briefly from the nightmare plaguing the rest of the world. To spend those long centuries without an unending shrieking in your head, wearing down and twisting anything human that dared to survive that long.

I was wrong. What I did to you, Crepera, Tonitrus, and the rest--it was another horrible atrocity atop thousands. But I wanted you to know, Izunia. Sick and twisted as it was, I wanted you to comprehend how I felt all that time. I wanted you to feel the same miserable agony I did.

[Ardyn's voice cracked and he shook his head, pressing a hand to his eyes.]

I'm sorry. Fuck, I'm so sorry, it was never supposed to be anyone but me. I didn't tell you because I wanted to protect you.

[founderinglight]

...I didn't need your protection, Ardyn. You had the best intentions, but what I needed was your honesty.

[He stops and sighs, finally breaking eye contact.]

And the really fucked up part is that I can better forgive you the sadism than I could have if it was just another part of the plot. Because at least I can understand that, I understand wanting to hurt back the thing that hurt you.

[He takes a deep breath. Inhale, exhale, thoughts in order instead of just yelling.]

...But also, seven hells, do you think existence in the Ring was a fucking party? It was terrible, it was the most awful thing and even for you I wouldn't do it again. Do you have any idea how much it hurts, to be able to do nothing but sit and watch while people you love burn themselves out and die young, over and over again for two thousand years?

It was awful. Do you think I'm kidding when I say that my love of you was the only thing that kept me me? It was so empty, we were all only barely shadows of ourselves by the end except for Regis, who was a recent enough addition to still have a human heart. The rest of us were... More weapons with wills, for the Chosen King to use against you, than we were people.