text | un: goodvibes

[aurable]

Hey, Drift here.

Brevity is the soul of wit and getting us the hell out of here, so I'll try to keep this to the point.

I've managed to speak to Remi, and now that I'm awake, I've been putting together what we already know. This deal with the orb, this 'phyllie' went awry, and now Remi has been feeding it immense arcane energy to keep up his end of the bargain. We all got a pretty good idea by now of how that's going.

I offered a possible solution, and it involves getting past that Sphynx and finding his body. The idea of offering something on our end to counteract the curse has been thrown around, and while Remi wasn't convinced it would work, he has expressed a willingness to try.

If you've seen me around, you've likely seen the greatsword strapped to my back. It's an artifact from Cybertron that siphons energy from my spark- the very essence of my life. Arguably you could call it my soul, but I doubt we want to waste time on a philosophical debate. My point is that energy can be channeled and redirected.

We juice Phyillie with pure, living energy and cross our fingers.

If that doesn't work, now would be an excellent time to develop plans B and C.

And

Remi gave me a parting gift that will help.

( ooc: please feel free to thread hop! )

Comments

[peasant]

"could be" doesn't mean "will be".
why do you care so much, anyway? we apparently only know OF each other.
how courteous of you to be so concerned for someone who is a stranger to you.

[cruelyethuman]

But I don't know you as well as I believe I do, and I wouldn't want to overstep.

Should I only be concerned about people that I know personally? Intimately?

[peasant]

well that's what you're so good at lately.

[ only being concerned for people he knows intimately. she's certain the word choice is pointed, a jab she refuses to retreat from. ]

better to stick to what you're best at, don't you think?

[cruelyethuman]

Not as good as I'd like to be, since I'm still here, trying to save you.

[peasant]

so sorry for the terrible inconvenience, moi soverenyi 🙄
you must feel very lucky that you have plenty of time to improve on not being concerned
though in my personal opinion you're already an expert at it
can't improve on what's already perfect!

[cruelyethuman]

As delightful as your compliments are, Alina, I would rather have your insults, if it means you will stop trying to kill yourself to prove some strange point.

There is another way.

[peasant]

are you so old that you can't tell the difference between sarcasm and compliments now?

every time i've tried to tell you there's another way, you've never bothered to listen
you always do whatever you want no matter how i feel about it, without letting me have a voice
why should i listen to whatever idea you're going to propose?

[cruelyethuman]

I was being kind. I see that was a wasted effort.

Stating that there might be another way, and having an actual plan for it, are different things. You never offered any alternative, you didn't even give me the courtesy of asking before-

[peasant]

lol
nice attempt. was it hard, trying something for the first time?

because you've always given me so much time to consider one.
you don't have any plan, either. looks like we're much the same, after all.

[cruelyethuman]

I don't know, Alina. Was it? Hard. That first time.

I'm not going to dignify that with an answer.

I would have given you time, but unfortunately you were nowhere to be found. Listening to rumors. Tell me, did you even hesitate?

[peasant]

shouldn't you know that already? or are you finally admitting that maybe you don't know everything?
hang on the shock of it is going to make me faint

i'd tell you to just ask one of your little birds for the answer but they're not here
that must be disappointing
i hear they loved to sing gossip about me in your ear

[cruelyethuman]

I never claimed to know everything, or that I don't make mistakes. That would be your own assumptions.

I was keeping you safe, and I almost failed in that. But you are willing to hold that against me, even after knowing what happened to Marie.

[peasant]

do i really need to specify it's sarcasm every time?
you never claimed it but you certainly behave like an annoying know-it-all

and you needed my diary and letters for that, apparently
speaking of —
don't bother denying that, marie told me all about that

[ never mind that it's a lie. alina recklessly spins it, anyway, in some vain hope to entrap him in it. and — subconsciously — her own refusal to expose what genya had told her, unlike what the tailor had done to her. ]

it should have been me instead of marie anyway

[cruelyethuman]

It is only sarcasm if you didn't actually believe your own assumptions about me.

I needed information. We've had unfortunate incidence with family members and friends before, or did you think that the walls around the Little Palace was to keep the Grisha in.

[His anger doesn't translate to the written word, but inside the Darkling is seething.]

It would have doomed us all. If General Zlatan could claim victory over you, he would have sold the rest of us to Kerch and the Tsar would have helped him. Gladly. Marie knew the danger that she took upon herself, and her sacrifice should not be tainted by your careless disregard for it.

[peasant]

LOL
in what world would i assume you know everything? sounds like wishful thinking on your part.
there is no universe in which i would think you have all the answers.

you stole my drawings. that isn't "information."
but at least you admit you're a snoop. it's good to know you never trusted me from the start.

i'll say it again
it should have been me
in fact i wish it was. how's that?

[cruelyethuman]

I was right in not trusting you. It took you how long of listening to my mother before you betrayed me?

You cannot possibly mean that.

oops cw for suicidal ideation

[peasant]

yes, how UNBELIEVABLE that i would listen to the one person who knows you better than anyone else.
want to know a secret? you did exactly what she warned me you would do.
it looks like i was right to listen to her. she was the only honest person in that entire palace.

i mean every word of it. you just don't want to hear it.
i wish i was dead. i wish i was dead every single day.
at least it would be peaceful.

Switching to voice

[cruelyethuman]

Of course she did. And she told you just enough truths to make you buy her lies. What did she tell you I would do?

[There's a moment of pause before the Darkling switches to voice. The tremor of it coming across the network too clearly.]

Alina, step away from the network.

[peasant]

are you that daft, or are you just so uncaring that you forgot again?
what she said you would do is lodged in my neck. your nice little necklace.

[ voice is a courtesy she doesn't repay, if only for the barrier it provides — and the way it barricades aureliah and rhys from having to hear any part of this. ]

no.
i'm so sick of you trying to tell me what to do.

locked private -Voice

[cruelyethuman]

She told you that I planned to force you. And you believed her. How easily we both fell in line. She is a very clever woman, my mother.

I'm not telling you what to do, I am pleading with you to step away from the network. This is not the place for this.

private 🡆

[peasant]

baghra wouldn't have manipulated you into making me a slave
you did that yourself
the only thing she's guilty of is being a hag

where's the place for it, then?

Forever private

[cruelyethuman]

She didn't have to, all she had to do was make you run. I looked everywhere for you, after finding Marie- I thought they might have succeeded with you as well. That I would find you dead in some dirty corner of Os Alta or worse. The amplifier was very far from my mind at the winter fete.

You clearly don't know my mother as well as you'd like to think.

Somewhere that isn't monitored. Or overheard.

[peasant]

do you think mal doesn't tell me things? i know you stole my drawing of the stag. i know you showed it to the men who went looking for it. and i know you had mal looking for it, too. if it was so far from your mind why would you send my friend to look for it?

you want me to believe she had some great plan to get rid of me, but she had no reason to. she was only trying to protect me from you.

i don't care who hears it.
i'm allowed to say whatever i want on the network, especially when it involves my own life.

[ okay, alina, you liar. she half cares. ]

[cruelyethuman]

Before I saw your drawings, all I knew of the stag were legends. Fairy tales told around bon fires and no one would believe me, that such a creature existed. But seeing him in your book- you knew. Your dreams were proof, that the impossible was possible. I thought it would take years, or decades to find him. No one had seen him in living memory, but your tracker found him in weeks. How could I have planned for that?

Is that so? If I was such a great threat to you, why did she wait and watch for months before talking to you. How could she have found you at the time that she did, when I was away, if she had not been watching you. Watching us.

[The thought makes his blood run cold, but Baghra had never shied away from ruining his life before, trying to steer him in the direction she's chosen.]

You are asking everyone on the station to see your pain and then let you go, to sacrifice yourself for us. I will not be the only one concerned.

[peasant]

[ the thought of baghra spying on them during — that is enough to make her nose wrinkle, momentarily. the other words she holds at bay, defenses of baghra's intentions: she was training me to be strong enough to defeat you.

because there's — something here. an opportunity. an opening. aleksander had wanted her to be a weapon, after all; so we make you a weapon, she remembers rhys declaring. and what's a better weapon, than pretending as though she might reluctantly believe him? it's a risk, but —

one she impulsively takes. one she feels she needs to take, trapped here with him, to gain an upperhand. to wrest back some control. ]

but she's your mother
i don't understand. why would she lie about something like that? it doesn't make any sense.

[ maybe that's believable, from an orphan. it helps that it's rooted in the truth of her own confusion, and a curiosity she can't ever quite stamp out. ]

you're overestimating my importance to most people
they're all here for their own selfish reasons too. they'd gladly let me go.