Week four

[letsplayamod]

Two more of your fellow gods, your companions, your friends, have met their end together. As you turn in for the night, and a new week dawns upon you, it's starting to be a bitter experience. Just how much of this will you be forced to take?

But all isn't just despair. The morning is brighter than the last. The storm clouds that previously plagued almost every day have dissipated, and this week brings plenty of sun and a friendlier breeze. Not to mention, another floor of this strange temple has revealed itself. Whatever lies within is your domain, not Typhon's. Keep it tight in your grasp, because you never know when you'll lose it.

Sunday | Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday

Profiles | Locations | Regains | IC Rules | Weekly AC

Quark's Bar

Comments

[necromants]

Are you sure you don't want it? Probably best not to let it fall into the wrong hands - just to be safe, of course~

[Not that he can imagine anyone here getting it in their head to go after Seymour for a murder victim, but you never know.]

I'll admit I'm quite curious about it.

[He leaves it there for now, just to see if Seymour is willing to talk about it.]

[taintedfayth]

[Well, that actually gets an eyebrow raise out of Seymour, if only because that isn't the reaction he was expecting. (It certainly wasn't the reaction he'd received back in his world...)

Now he does turn that hand over to indicate that if Zvei is offering, he will in fact take it.]

I will not deny its contents-- I did kill my father, just as he said.

[For the moment, he'll just wait to see how Zvei takes that bit of information before he proceeds.]

[necromants]

[When has Zvei ever had a normal reaction, though... Anyway, here you go! All yours, bud.]

He seemed awfully eager to take the blame for your actions. Was he a terrible father? Did that have anything to do with why you killed him? Or was he merely in your way?

[The questions are all curious, not pointed. Not judging either, because like hell if he has any room to judge Seymour for killing someone.]

[taintedfayth]

[He'll take the sphere and tuck it away carefully into his robe. The fewer people who know this exists, the better!]

You have read my plaque, have you not? I am half Guado and half human. As you could see, the Guado is from my father's side.

[Now he lets the beginnings of a grim, bitter smile creep onto his face.]

My father valued appearances and status above all else. In an attempt to curry favor with both the Guado and the humans, he took a human wife and sired a child with her. But it did not go the way he expected when that child was labeled an abomination by both sides.

[necromants]

Let me guess: he did little to help you?

[A lonely upbringing with a father who was far too busy currying favor with others... He can see how that could breed resentment that could lead into death. It seems the plague of those bearing half-human, half-something else characteristics being shunned isn't something unique to Aelios.]

[taintedfayth]

[Seymour gives a slight, noncommittal shrug. "Little" would imply that he had done anything at all.]

He tolerated my existence... until it threatened the stability of his position as leader of the Guado. When stirrings of an uprising began, he had me - and my mother - exiled to the remote island of Baaj in the dead of the night.

... I was but eight years old at the time.

[So young, but not so young that he couldn't understand what was going on... or why.]

[necromants]

Huh. Well, sounds to me like he got what was coming to him. He really did fail you. Good of him to recognize it, less good that he didn't do a damn thing about it.

[taintedfayth]

I suppose he thought that revoking my exile once I was old enough to be useful was apology enough.

[A soft laugh, but there's no humor to it.]

He never actually apologized, you know. He believed his actions were justified as long as the Guado were content.

[necromants]

[Not that an apology would have made things right, and it might not even have made things better, but sheesh.]

It sounds as though you had to put up with a lot because of him. Was your mother any better?

[taintedfayth]

[His next inhalation is slow, measured; the resulting exhalation equally so.]

... my mother loved me in her own way. She did what she thought was best.

[But oh, it had been anything but.]

[necromants]

[That seems like the sort of answer that begs to be poked at. Zvei considers leaving it alone, because even he can tell that this is a very loaded topic, but...]

Will you tell me about her? I must admit, I'm rather curious.

[taintedfayth]

[If this were anyone else, he would end this discussion here, or wave it off as being something not worth elaborating on. It's fraught in ways that Zvei truly has no idea of, but perhaps that's exactly why he doesn't leap to change the subject-- because that would be even more suspicious than just continuing.]

Do not misunderstand... she did try to protect me from the cruelty of the world. She sought a way to gain me the acceptance of the people of Spira, but what she ultimately settled upon was...

[Well.]

I told you of the aeons that only summoners are capable of calling upon. I did not tell you of what creates and sustains those aeons.

[necromants]

[Well. That sounds like it's going in a certain (dreadful) direction, but hey who knows, maybe it's just a needlessly ominous setup for something that isn't all that bad after all??]

True, you didn't. What is it that creates them?

[taintedfayth]

The aeons are the dreams of the fayth-- people who sacrificed their lives so that their souls might be sealed away in order to grant the power of those dreams to summoners.

[... yeah, it sure is going in that direction, huh.]

[necromants]

[...yep, there it is.]

Oh dear. So your mother sacrificed herself for yours, then?

[He should probably have a reaction that isn't "morbid fascination" but eh. What do you expect from him, sympathy??]

[taintedfayth]

[A smile, but there's absolutely no joy or humor in it whatsoever. It's the smile of someone who had all of the last remnants of hope snuffed out of them at the age of ten.]

It was a logical decision. She did not have long to live as it was.

[And yet if she had simply let her life end naturally? ... that would have been far, far less painful than having to watch her be turned into a fayth before his very eyes.]

[necromants]

...Fascinating.

[It's out of his mouth before he can stop it, and he's not talking about Seymour's mother anymore. No, it's the look in his eyes, the way his smile is both so oddly calm and unnatural at the same time that captivates Zvei; certainly not the sort of reaction he should be having, and he recognizes that after a moment, blinking and clearing his throat.]

My apologies for your loss. Even so, I can't imagine it was an easy thing to go through.

[taintedfayth]

[No, it most definitely isn't the reaction Zvei should be having. And yet? Somehow to Seymour it's infinitely more palatable than yet another superficial show of pity, or - worse yet - disgust, because he's grown so used to both of those things that he finds them both repulsive in their own ways.

He finds he doesn't dislike it.]

I do not think she considered that part when she made her decision.

[She certainly didn't expect him to have a total breakdown, abandon the pilgrimage and flee back to Baaj without even accepting her fayth!]

[necromants]

[Zvei settles a little, resting his chin on his hand as he considers.]

...Maybe she wasn't really considering how you'd react at all.

[If she was already dying, with not long to live... then perhaps she just wanted to be useful in some way. Perhaps it didn't occur to her that her son would have any problems with it.]

[taintedfayth]

I doubt she was.

[For all that she'd tried, she'd never really understood him... but then, had anyone?]

She thought that giving me the power to defeat Sin would solve all of my problems. But the world is not that simple.

[Oh, to her credit, it was partially thanks to Anima that he had managed to claw his way up to the positions he currently holds, but for the most part? It was his own determination and ruthlessness that had paved that path.]

[necromants]

Some people do have a tendency to see the world in black and white. To think that a solution is simple enough to solve all your problems.

[Pot, kettle. Not that he's really aware of it, though.]

Are you angry at her for what she did?

[taintedfayth]

[The sound Seymour makes is neither a "yes" nor "no" in nature, but rather something unemotionally neutral.]

To what end? What is done cannot be undone. There is little point in bearing a grudge that will ultimately amount to nothing.

[... that isn't a no.]

Besides, I must thank her. Anima has been... most useful to me.

[necromants]

True, I do agree with that. But she can be both useful and irritating in her decision to leave you behind.

[It's not a pointed remark, just a curious one. One he asks because he doesn't understand; because Zvei has no memories of ever having anyone that close to him before. Is anger a driving factor here at all, or is Seymour truly accepting of her decision?]

[taintedfayth]

[It's a question that might have an answer... were Seymour still capable of feeling much of anything at all. Instead, all that remains in that hollow place in his heart is a sort of numb acceptance and resignation.

He'd felt angry once. He'd cried his heart out once. But what was left in its wake is too empty and parched for any genuine feeling to take root.]

Perhaps she was both. I have given it little thought since that day.

[It's a lie, and he knows that Zvei knows it's a lie, and yet he tells it anyway.]

[necromants]

[A lie, but one he'll let Seymour have. There are some things you can never truly be prepared to face, and Seymour already did him the courtesy of not pressing on one such thing once before.]

She's been useful to you, at least. That's always the bright side. Though you do have my apologies for being rather... detached? About the whole thing. I'm afraid emotion has never been my strong suit.

[Likely unsurprising, given how little his expressions have changed from the day he arrived here.]