lifeaftr | June Aftermath: Magic Lantern Strange

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June Aftermath: Magic Lantern Strange

JUNE AFTERMATH: MAGIC LANTERN STRANGE

Who: Everyone!
What: A celebration!
When: Evening of June 21st, and well into morning
Where: Ensō, E3 and E4
Warnings: Mark as needed!

Slide the Light Off You
As promised, the evening of the 21st finds the Jormun hosting a party on Ensō's largest beachfront. Near immediately, it should be clear that they've spared absolutely no expense when it comes to showing their story-walker brethren a good time.

Of course, they may also be...showing off a little.

The stalls and comfortable seating supplied around multiple firepits appears to be a mishmash of Jormun built contraptions and items requested from the Storyteller- many may be delighted to see the variety of beach cushions and blankets, items the Jormun will be happy to let their story-walker friends take home at the end of the festivities. A veritable smorgasbord of food and drink is also readily available, from the kid-friendly options of brrshavak (a spicy drink with a taste akin to liquified chili pepper) and molkavarr (a rich chocolaty broth) to the alcoholic rakvrhak (a rich wine that tastes oddly plumlike). Do be warned, however, that the last is incredibly potent.

Large slabs of driftwood have been laid out to form impromptu tables, bristling with the Jormun's culinary expertise: fried squid, seaweed wraps, spicy pickled kelp, kebabs of roasted eel, hard-boiled snapling eggs, and so on. The vegetables and meats of the sea have been laid out for all to enjoy, so tuck in!

Throughout the evening the air will be filled with the sound of music, with multiple Jormun eager to show off their skill in instrumentation. Conch-shell horns, carved driftwood flutes, urchin-needle harps, and countless more contraptions engineered by a deep sea-dwelling people fill the air with the most peculiar but nonetheless not unpleasant sound. Most of the bands will be set up in the shallow waters, however, as their instruments are not made to be used in open air - try playing them above the surface of the water at your own risk.

Of course, there's plenty more to entertain even the most difficult of people.

You're Living the Strobe Light
Those interested in proving their strength and skill will be encouraged to enter one of the many tournaments across the shoreline. The tournaments vary, featuring such challenges as play fights with the schlacknorkcvic to prove who is the greatest warrior, timed events to see who can stay on a bucking tigershark for the longest, and even a tourney of brovonkosshk, a board game somewhat similar to chess. Don't see anything you're interested in? Make your own. If you can think it, the Jormun will happily accommodate it - impromptu challenges are the highlight of such evenings, after all, though the Jormun won't be taking any responsibility for the first poor soul that decides to usher in a drinking contest.

A small variety of walker games are also available. Jormun children are more than eager to play such games as hide-and-seek or red light, green light, while Connor Murphy will be bringing his Cards Against Humanity deck, for those ready to completely screw with the idea of a fourth wall. There's even a game of Spin the Bottle... except the bottle is being spun overhead like a mace. Being hit by said bottle requires you to do a stupidly ridiculous task, so perhaps it's best to avoid that particular adaptation...

And of course, there's the lightshow.

As mentioned previously, the main show of the evening is the show of brssticca: bursts of magical light beneath the water that will put any fireworks show to shame. The lights are safe to wade and swim through, do keep in mind that the phosphorescent algae tends to cling to the skin. And should you reach into those spiraling, fluorescent nebulae of patterns beneath the surface, some of the configurations of light may abruptly shatter like broken glass.

Additionally, skilled Jormun will be happy to assist those who care to dress up for the event with intricate applications of shellivthiss - a style of waterproof body paint that is not only bright, but luminescent. Something the Jormun may forget to mention, however, is how similar shellivthiss is to henna; should you decide to get all dolled up, except to shine bright light a diamond for weeks to come.

Lastly, those who wanted to bring their own adventures are welcome to as well! Supplying some dope roast? Bringing those sweet, sweet greens? Have some alcohol to supply? All is welcomed by the Jormun - and undoubtedly, your fellow adventurers as well.

You May Find Some Peace
Feeling a tad adrift? Make sure to check the OOC Event Post, which has details regarding the event timeline!

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It wasn't hard to spot Ignis when he was glowing like that. At first he was prepared to walk over and greet him, but he paused several yards away to take a shot. He figured, with all the noise, Ignis might not notice him and he could get some good candid shots before he let himself be known.

He let the iridescent lighting illuminate his shots so he could have a clear view of the paint. No doubt the clicking would be familiar to Ignis. He snapped away several in succession before walking over.

"Hey, Iggy. You doing all right?"

A small smile crosses Ignis' face when the familiar sound of the camera shutter makes its way through his thoughts. He purposely keeps still until Prompto finishes and he can hear the blonde's footsteps crossing the sand toward him.

"I'm doing fairly well. A lot has happened over the last couple of months. I'm...rather pleased with the results, but it's still a lot to process. How has the night treated you?"

"Yeah. Always something going on."

A lot of times not good somethings. He settled down next to Ignis. "I'm stuffed. Did you try that one drink? It's got some zing to it."

And Prompto did like a little spice in his life. They didn't usually have many options these days with food and seasoning. "You and the big guy okay?"

Resting on ankle on his other leg, he idly sifted through his photos to see how the shots turned out.

"If you think it has zing to it, it's probably for the best I did not," he'd caught one whiff of how potent it smelled and decided to pass.

In response to the second question, Ignis actually bows his head a little, cheeks flushing. He can only hope the paint hides most of it from sight, "Y-yes. I believe it's fair to say we are getting along well now."

What an understatement. Someone should really call him on that.

"Heh. I'm glad. I've gotta admit, it was a liiittle weird when he got drunk. I was starting to think he might grab my butt." Luckily, he could brush these things off. He wasn't going to start a kerfuffle and ruin things.

He sighed and went silent for a moment, thinking of how to word this. "You've... got a lot going on right now. Are you..." he paused. It was strange being on this side of a conversation with Iggy, but he was concerned and he wanted to be there for him. "I mean, are you sure you can handle it all?"

"He didn't make you uncomfortable, did he?" In a flash, the embarrassed expression disappears from Ignis' face and a more concerned one takes it's place, "Do you need me to talk to him?"

Drunk or not, there are boundaries that need to be respected.

Ignis is worried at first that Prompto's silence means that Gladio did upset him. The mistaken assumption leaves him quite surprised when the blonde finally speaks and makes his true concerns clear.

"Am I sure I can handle it all?" Ignis laughs softly, running his hand through hair that is finally starting to fall out of the familiar spike Gladio put it into earlier. "Will you think less of me if I tell you I have no idea?"

"I'm okay." He laughed a little, soft and kind of amused at how ridiculous it was. "Wonder if Gladio will be embarrassed tomorrow, though. If he remembers."

He patted Ignis' leg with one hand, letting it rest there lightly. "No, man. I just want you to remember that you have friends. If anything goes badly or you need some help or something..."

What help would he be? He wasn't exactly the idea guy. Or the muscle. Regardless, he wanted to be there for them if they needed him. "Like, you don't have to be embarrassed if you need to talk or anything."

"Even if he doesn't remember, I give you blanket permission to embarrass him as much as you wish. It's only fair." There is a mischievous glint in Ignis' right eye before his expression settles into something more serious.

"I... Thank you," Ignis turns his blind gaze toward his lap, his hand finding where Prompto's rests on his leg. "It's always been hard for me to talk about the things that are bothering me. I'm suppose to be the one relieving the burden of others, not adding to it. I've been trying to get better about that, but the process has been slow. What happened in the jungle with Gladio... It should never have happened. The fault is all mine for not speaking up sooner."

It doesn't matter that he was scared of driving away his closest friends. He should have had more faith in them; he should have trusted and not let 'what ifs' stop him.

"I apologize for that. You were so confused and neither of us were in a state to tell you what was going on."

"Don't worry about that. It's water under the bridge," he reassured him quickly. Of course he knew that Iggy didn't want things to go so badly. No grudges there. His hand gently gripped Ignis' leg. "I know you usually handle everything and we've kind of taken that for granted, but it's okay if you make a mistake or need to count on one of us."

Sometimes they needed to remember that Ignis was just another guy. A really, really reliable guy, but human nonetheless. He took in a deep breath as he tried to address the main issue, "Honestly, it's not Gladio I'm worried about. It's more, umm..."

The other guy.

"Ardyn," Ignis says the redhead's name softly, not even needing to guess to know what Prompto's worries are. If one of the others was in his place right now, he'd feel the same worries and then some.

With a self-conscious laugh, he places his hands behind him so he can lean back and turn his blind gaze up toward the stars above them. If he imagines hard enough, he can almost see the stars he and Noctis used to spend so much time looking at when they were younger.

"You're far from the only one who is worried about where this...thing between us will lead. Back when this all first started, I certainly wasn't planning on losing part of my heart to him. I just wanted to make sure he left you and Noctis alone. Later, I wanted to find out if there was anything he knew that might be used to change things back home. Now..." Ignis pauses and shakes his head. "Now I've manged to put myself in the most unclear situation I ever could have imagined and I can't find it in myself to be sorry about it."

He stayed quiet, letting Ignis talk. He had a lot of concerns, and definitely didn't think Ardyn deserved Iggy, but he was reserving judgment. Nothing he would say about it would be something that Iggy wouldn't already know. He hoped. There was still a nagging fear that this was all trickery. After all, would it be beyond Ardyn to deceive people for months on end?

"I talked to Ardyn..." he finally started quietly. "Umm, a while back. I asked him 'bout the other... the MTs. He said they couldn't be saved." He kept his voice serious but steady, focusing more on fiddling with his camera than anything. "Do you think he was telling the truth?"

Ignis is silent for a moment, a little startled by how easily Prompto accepts his words, at least how easily he accepts them on the surface. He's certain the blonde has more to say, but instead of saying it, he switches topics and Ignis lets himself follow along. Perhaps later, Prompto will feel comfortable enough to say more.

"If he said it on Monsun, then I am positive it was the truth. The man he is there has no reason to lie about such a thing," Ignis turns back to Prompto then, sadness in his expression. "I'm sorry. I'm sure that wasn't the answer you hoped he would give."

"I tripped over him, when I went to Monsun."

So he wasn't sure how long he'd been on the island and he didn't know what to make of it. It was something difficult to swallow and brought up questions when the others... didn't have a personality. How human was he?

"...If you think he's telling the truth," he said quietly. He would trust Ignis' judgment on this. If Ignis thought he knew Ardyn well, he would defer to his opinion.

"Did you see something back home that makes you think he might not be telling the truth?" Ignis' question is gentle. He realizes that Prompto has a tendency to take the words of others ahead of his own thoughts and he doesn't want the blonde doing that here. Not when he's the only one who's had close experience with this topic. They haven't talked in great deal about all the things he saw when he was separated from them, but that experience makes him more of an expert on the topic of MTs than they are.

Ignis gives Prompto's hand a gentle squeeze, "What's on your mind? Your questions only tell me half the story."

"I dunno."

In some ways he really didn't. He didn't have years of experience in the facility, only what he saw when he was sneaking through it and blowing shit up. Enough to know that he didn't like the idea that he was 'programmable'.

But that wasn't quite fair to Ignis. Much as he didn't want to discuss the details of what he saw, Ignis couldn't have a decent conversation with him if he didn't say anything. "Just... The ones that were still in the tubes... they looked normal."

Like him.

Ah, so much said in just that one sentence. As new understanding dawns on him, Ignis finds himself moving closer to Prompto in an offer of silent support.

"I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase 'looks can be deceiving.' As normal as they may have looked, we have no idea what their mental states were. Unlike you, they weren't freed from the nightmare they were born into. They were trapped with people who were likely working to remove their humanity the moment they drew their first breaths. The only way to know for sure would be to have woken one of them up, and I don't think that would have been safe for you at the time."

Waking one might have wakened them all and there is no way Prompto could have fought them all off by himself.

He let out a lengthy sigh.

"Yeah, you're right."

He had no idea half of the stuff he was looking at in there. All he could see was himself in them, and it scared him what his life could have been. He pitied the poor souls that were left behind and, perhaps, felt some survivor's guilt.

"Just woulda been nice if we could've gone back and saved them at some point. I mean... Gladio said it'd been ten years. That's a lot of time to do... something." No plan. This was more about emotion. An inner desire to fix something that was horribly wrong.

"Perhaps it's something we can change when we find a way to change Noct's fate?"

While knowing that one version of Noctis was able to find life after giving his to save Eos has brought Ignis some peace of mind, he still would prefer a world where Noctis doesn't have to die at all.

"I think what it comes down to is either us finding a way to change our story from the outside or us finding a way to remember what we've learned here once we return. Honestly, I'm not sure which is the easier path. Both seems equally difficult, if not impossible."

Not that 'impossible' means a lot to them, but for once it might be nice to be doing something that wasn't quite so impossible.

His voice brightened slightly, hopeful, "You think we could? Try, that is."

He didn't really expect it. Not that the guys had something against him as far as he knew, but they had their priorities, and Prompto's aspirations took a back seat. "Ardyn said I was an anomaly because I was taken as a baby, and it was impossible because the others are," he pursed his lips, "'programmed' but... But if they're programmed, they should be able to be, de-programmed. I mean, they have minds, right?" The more he talked the more he tried to reason out his argument. "And what if he's wrong, anyway? I doubt he's ever tried to do it, so how would he even know what would happen? When we go back, and we have everything else settled, we could try to se if any are still left behind and try to go get them..."

He paused. There were other thoughts plaguing him that he wasn't sure he wanted to talk about, especially with the guys. "Umm, Iggy...? What if..." He took a deep breath. "Nevermind."

"Of course. While Noctis has to be our focus, that doesn't mean helping him is the only thing we can do." If Ignis has learned nothing else by being here, he's learned that.

He can't help but frown when he hears the word 'programming' applied to living beings. It's such a strange choice, but then again, they are talking about Ardyn.

"You must keep in mind that even at his best and when he is trying to be helpful, Ardyn's view of the world is vastly different than our own. I believe most people would use the word 'conditioned' instead of 'programmed,' and what is conditioned can be undone even if it does take time. You may have followed a different path than they did, but I would assume they all were as you were once. That means they have minds and wills of their own. We would just need to find a way to reach them again."

Though he sounds optimistic, Ignis can't help but feel torn. Ardyn's view is biased, of course, as those Prompto is so worried about saving are no more than tools to him. Astrals know, there seems very little human about the MTs they have fought so far. At what point is that humanity completely lost? Were those Prompto saw beyond that point? There are so many questions and Ignis just hopes he's not setting Prompto up to be hurt with his optimistic words.

Ignis is pulled out of these thoughts when Prompto begins to ask a question and then suddenly cuts himself off, "Mmm... I do greatly dislike being 'neverminded.' Out with it. Tell me what's troubling you so."

He greatly considered brushing it off and telling him to 'forget it'. It was a depressing line of thought to continue down and, frankly, hurt to think about, because eventually it meant losing someone if it was true.

Which was why it took him a while to continue even after Ignis pressured him.

"Wh... What do we do if we..." he bit his lip, "don't go back to the same world?"

Edited 2018-07-24 14:06 (UTC)

Ignis starts slightly when he hears the question. Honestly, he'd expected something along the lines of Prompto worrying about what the others being programmed meant for him. Could he be programmed as well? Turned against his friends by someone with the right know how? Those questions Ignis can think of good answers to, ones that would hopefully put the blonde at ease. This question?

This question he has no answer to because he's been worrying about the same thing. What if he goes back home and still becomes the man who hurt Gladio so much? What if he remembers none of this and doesn't ever realize all he has to do is reach out in order to know happiness like he never thought he would know?

What about Noctis? And Ardyn, and oh, there are so many things he wants to do differently. So much that they can do differently now that they know.

Realizing he's been quiet for quite some time, Ignis reaches out toward Prompto, beckoning him closer so he can wrap an arm around him, squeezing him as if he is afraid to let go of him lest he vanish.

"I don't know," he's honest, perhaps brutally so. "I could spin you some pretty words, but they would just be lies and you deserve better than that. I suppose, if we have to think on the worst and you end up back in a world where your Ignis is not me, I would ask you to teach him what I have learned. It won't be easy, but I think I know myself pretty well--better than I once did--and he will help you and care for you just as I have."

It had been a deep set fear that had been growing. With others arriving from the tower there had been initial information about others being transported to other places. Then there were memories being played with. And multiples of the same people. Recently, someone had claimed to know him. Someone he was sure he'd never met. Noctis had been switched with another Noctis, one he couldn't imagine was the same that they'd arrived with. There were many of the same worlds out there, with slight differences.

He worried about the Noctis that had been here. He worried what happened to the newer Noctis they'd just met. Gladio felt like he was from another world entirely. That left Ignis, the one who had stayed with him from the beginning. He'd always assumed they were from the same place when he arrived, but now he was questioning that. What if it wasn't a timeline thing that caused them to remember different things, but a world thing? Maybe Ignis' world was a little behind his...

Taking a deep breath and letting it out, he sat silently for a bit in Ignis' arm. If this was another Ignis, of course he cared about the Ignis back at home. But he'd been here with this Iggy for a year. They'd been through so much together. It hurt to think of them ending up in different places.

"If we're not from the same place... If we go back to different places, I still want to be friends. I mean, I still care about Iggy at home, too, but... I..." This was getting a bit too much for his liking. It was hard to talk about things that might potentially separate them forever without his voice getting too shaky. He finally huffed and spat it out, "I don't want to lose you."

"Oh Prompto," Ignis tightens his arm around the blonde, titling his head forward so he can smile into his hair, "I'm afraid you're quite stuck with me. As long as it is within my power, I won't leave your side and even if I have no choice, you will always be someone I care about. Never doubt that."

When Prompto had first suggested them just staying here instead of going back home, Ignis had been wary of the idea, though he couldn't dismiss it completely. Not when he was looking so hard for some way to save Noctis from his fate. The idea of leaving everyone behind on their world--or worlds as the case may be--frozen in time indefinitely didn't sit well with him. How could he abandon those he cared about and had a duty to?

Now, so many months later, he is still torn. He doesn't want to abandon those waiting for him back home, but at the same time he can't imagine life without those he's grown to love here. Gladio. Ardyn. Yes, even Prompto. If they aren't the ones who are waiting for him back home, is it still really home?

That doesn't even touch on how much he's changed himself in the last year. How can he accept going home and forgetting all he's learned? How can he risk going back and becoming the man who hurt Gladio so badly?

There has to be some other way because if not, what kind of ending to their story will it be?

It was heartening to at least hear that Ignis wanted to stay with him, too. Even if he wasn't Ignis' real Prompto. He found himself leaning into Ignis' embrace, enjoying the warmth of it while he, for a little bit, could sit there and feel wanted. They had way too many horrible things to think about. Would they ever get an easy day?

But that meant their plans needed to be a little more complicated than originally predicted, because they had more possibilities to take into account. And if he still wanted to see Iggy, and they ended up on different worlds, they needed to do something about that.

"Dude... We've gotta figure out this world hopping thing. How we ended up here, how we can get home, and how we can go from world to world. Then, like, we could always see each other if we wanted."

A fairytale ending? Sure. But hadn't they been through enough to deserve one?

June Aftermath: Magic Lantern Strange

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