Connect - 09/15/20
[Novine]
The end of another day has arrived. Not that it was necessarily long. The days went by fairly quickly to her, her experience of time making the days seem like she has had more true sunsets under her belt than she had. Most days she wasn't this sapped, this tired. Well, it isn't that she is tired exactly. It is that she is simply unable to continue without replenishing her aether, that connective fuel that keeps her tethered to this place and in the lives of her family.
She mumbles to herself as she pauses, touching her earring idly, not using to having such a large, heavy thing hanging off of her lobe. “Where to today, Father? I wonder what you'd like to hear more. Waves? Perhaps the wind in Sagoli? There's always the fire in the home but… I dunno, I've been there too much lately. And Alkaid has me exhausted. I guess it might be a good day for the treatment bed for me. Hope that's not too boring but… yeah, we're doing that.
She teleports there and quickly makes her way to the basement, a few researchers pouring over vials and tomes, another working out some kind of formula on a board. She smiles happily seeing them doing her work. Whatever that was. She keeps it out of her mind as she pulls herself into the alcove where the bed is hiding, moving to the back to set the appropriate settings and climbing inside. The lid closes over her, an ultra-violet light within making her light hair even more luminous as she arranges it around herself, curling into a little ball. Here, in this space, alone, she allows herself the comfort of an embrace - her own, laying on her side and crossing her arms, humming herself and her father a little tune as she soaks in the influx of aether that begins to flow into the confined space.
[Eligor]
The peace does not last long. Novine would find herself standing on a battlefield full to brimming with armored corpses and beasts, a long Eligor standing in the middle of the carnage in what appeared to be the leftover scraps of his armor, a number of arrows lodged firmly in his exposed arm and shoulder.
[Novine]
She looks around, the transition as irritating and jarring as ever, her new least favorite activity. She looked for Ilia, Alia, Koro, other signs of a world that was not her own before she settled her gaze upon her father. As if trying to make sure he was really there, she held back her hope and walked calmly, stepping over corpses, her gaze fixed on him, wanting to get a closer look, her head tilted in that owl-like way.
[Eligor]
He turned in the space of a breath and slashed for her neck with bloodied claws, but found Novine quite incorporeal. He stared at her for a long time, his rage becoming more and more obvious as time passed, smoke puffing from his nose and mouth in a thick black stream but still being broken through by the glow from his eyes.
“Now you dare even don the visage of my own children? Do you think this will be enough? Do you think you will stop me!?”
[Novine]
Novine staggers backward, even though it would certainly had been too slow and too late. She keeps her footing and reaches up to her beck just to make sure everything was in tact.
A little shaken, her expression moves from one of shock and surprise to something more determined. She moves to sit on the ground, crossing her arms to show that she doesn't want to attack him or anything.
“It's me though! I dunno how I'm here but… I'm not that stupid thing! That's who you're fighting, isn't it? That creature?”
[Eligor]
He looks to her, clearly not believing.
“It will not be enough. Bring the next wave. I'll kill as many as it takes.”
[Novine]
*She sighs and then raises her hand and literally waves at him.
“That good enough? Look, I went through this kinda thing recently so I know I can't really prove it. You're making this reunion really shitty, you know.”
[Eligor]
“I do not care how you feel. If you are going to try at convincing me at least give me worthy information. Wearing her face will do nothing.”
The many corpses surrounding him begin to rise one after another, a haze of purple aether crackling between them before they all charge at once like strange marionettes. He proceeds to tear through the horde with his claws, ripping off limbs and crushing the armored foes.
[Novine]
Novine lets out an annnoyed 'tch' and decides to attempt to help him, stretching out both her hands to push back a group of them with a wall of spikey ice.
“Did you hear the song I wrote!?” she yells vaguely, over the din of fighting, her high voice carrying quite well, all things considered. “Pheria said you'd be able to hear!”
[Eligor]
Novine is not corporeal, her ice went through the armored horde like they were not there.
*He stopped at this however, noticing the lack of interaction.*
”….Probably. I've heard a lot of things.“
“Doesn't mean any of it is real.”
[Novine]
Novine gives up and just sits back down on the ground, knees drawn up, elbows on her knees, and chin in her hands.
“Well, it is. I miss you. So I talk to you all the time. Even if it's not real, do you like it, or am I annoying you?”
[Eligor]
“Why do you want to talk to me? Don't you have work? Should be quite boring to bother with me now that I'm gone.”
[Novine]
“But you're not gone. You're here. Eitr always told me that it doesn't matter if stuff is real or not. When you're experiencing stuff, you're experiencing it, and it's your reality. So I wanna be a part of that so you're not alone here. I dunno if you're real, but does it matter right now? I'm not just gonna ignore you.”
[Eligor]
“He finished dispatching the revived horde and dropped to a knee, a new wound present on the left side of his neck beginning to weep.*
“I'm always alone. That's how it is supposed to be. Being around or near me will only cause worse things to happen.”
“Everything gets worse when I am involved, whether I want it to or not.”
[Novine]
She walks over to him and makes to sit next to him, not bothering to touch him.
“Well, I wouldn't get to live and meet my sisters and see Eorzea if you didn't help me. I'd be doing stupid boring cycles still.”
[Eligor]
“You're still in danger.”
[Novine]
“So's everyone. Like miners, the cave could collapse. N' a fancy Monetarist could choke on a fishbone. Parents give their kids their diseases. It's just part of life, the entropy of it. It's dumb to think too hard about if it was different. Everyone's got to face their own dangers. Yours just wears a scarier mask.”
[Eligor]
“We will see.”
“How is everyone doing?”
[Novine]
“Good I think. I probably should ask people. Lami started hanging out with Pipino's friends, so that's a bit weird. Leiser got back from his big trip and can throw rocks at stuff now. He's gonna take me into the Shroud and teach me how to be stealthy! Uhm.. letsee… A'erina and F'loki like each other I guess, or at least she said as much. Pheria said Raziel locked herself in her room and won't come out… So I guess she could be better. I asked if I could see her and hadn't heard anything, so I dunno what the deal is there. Alkaid showed up though so… I dunno what happened there. She's really fun though. I'm teaching her stuff!”
She says the last bit in a very proud tone.
[Eligor]
“Alkaid showed up and no one is dead?”
[Novine]
“Someone might be, but not on my watch anyway. F'loki gave her a big axe she likes to slam into the ground when she gets mad instead, so I think that helps.”
[Eligor]
”….Alright. And what of your organization? What are you doing with it?”
[Novine]
“Well… I uh, didn't do much with it yet, cause I was… I dunno, I didn't take you going away well, but I'm better now. Alkaid helped, and plus F'loki keeps doing stuff without asking me or telling me so I guess I've gotta let people know what's up.”
She stands up and puts her hands on her hips in some kind of power pose, like she thinks that's what leaders do.
“I wanna make a world prettier. I think you asked me awhile ago, where I didn't think it was possible to create a perfect world because destroying stuff comes so naturally to people. They think destroying stuff is what should be done instead of building stuff, and they're not exactly wrong.”
She walks back and forth, walking through the bodies as she soliloquizes
“You can't make art very easily onna canvas that's already been painted on. They need a blank slate. So I wanna create a blank slate. Well send people out and destroy the things that are causing the most entropy, the most discord. Then once they're all gone, we enforce the balance and people will be free to use their lives to live their full potentials, building nice things instead. People don't get to live to their potential the way things are, after all.”
[Eligor]
“Your approach places too much faith in people. But you will see for yourself. If that's what you want to do, then you should go do that instead of worrying over some old man.”
The bodies begin to rise once again, but the world starts to fade, as if the connection was fading out.
[Novine]
Novine looks around at the fading world and panics a bit, but manages to blurt out a response. “I'm not worried about you! I know you're gonna win! So just hurry up and get it over with so we can see you again!”
[Eligor]
He doesn’t respond. The world fades away completely until suddenly Novine would find herself staring at the lid of her treatment bed again.
[Novine]
Novine lets out a little sad sort of whimper as she turns to her side again, resuming that balled up position, hugging herself again.
“You're doing fine, so… just keep going.”
She starts to hum again as she closes her eyes lifting a hand from her upper arm to idly rub her finger over the crystal, turning most of her focus to the aether.
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