cancry | Luxuria Intro Log

Luxuria Intro Log

PROCEEDING...
With the real super power of teamwork, the Executors have successfully managed to make their way through the Gula Underside and defeat the previous Authority there. With Gerda now freed from her past regrets and given the power of an Executor, Gula and its inhabitants seem to be in safe hands... for now at least. More interesting – or concerning, perhaps – is the tentative ally you've gained in the form of Birdie, the mysterious girl who attacked some of your number in the Superbia Underside. While she seemed to be nothing but an enemy back then, a surprising connection has been formed with who you now understand to be the Authority of Purgatory itself. While she doesn't necessarily believe the Executors will be able to repair Purgatory, she is at least willing to admit that she shares their goals of wanting to see Purgatory restored... either to its former state, or to something new. But what does that mean for the Executors? And what does that mean for Rei supposedly born from the Authority's discarded heart? There are still many questions the Executors need to answer and as a blast of dry, hot air blows up from the next layer, you can only hope that Luxuria holds the key to at least some of them...
LUXURIA
♪♫ Wet & Dry – Sakuzyo After the humidity and noise of the Gula Underside, passing down to the Lust Layer of Purgatory initially seems like a relief. The air here is dry and sharp and though you hear noise drifting up to meet you and see a whole rainbow of lights clustered together in the dark, it doesn't seem as though it'll be quite as overwhelming as some of the bustling Layers you've had the pleasure of exploring before. But as you set foot down into Luxuria and feel the heat of the ground under your feet, you begin to wonder if you might just have hopped out of the frying pan and into the fire...

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[ Mona looks down and runs a hand (bare — no gloves) along the stall, the barrell of the toy rifle. the expression on her face is sad, but fond. ]

Everything here... reminds me of someone else.

Lupin would have liked the games. He'd have won so much that they banned him from playing. And Impey would have wanted to see how the rides work, so we'd have to go on everything.

Van Helsing would have said he didn't want to play, but—

[ she hoists the rifle, and tries to picture Van Helsing's stance, how he holds the gun, the calm focus in his face. she closes one eye, and then corrects herself, thinking that Van always looked straight ahead when he was firing. ]

—he'd have won first prize from this game in one try.

[ she pulls the trigger. it doesn't even graze a single target.

Mona stares, her mouth hanging open a little in sheer dismay. ]

[Ahhhh, memories. Bittersweet, it seems. Not unpleasant to have, merely sad that it's over. It's heartwarming to see her try, and to hear her recount those who would have enjoyed this place.

Her whiffing the shot seems to take her by surprise, and he chuckles, patting her on the head.]

Don't be discouraged, dear. Have you ever fired a gun, even a toy one, before?

[ she means to protest. to insist that she can do it, this time, or to sulk about it in jest. his hand comes down on her head, a familiar gesture—

Chiron speaks, but Mona doesn't hear a word of it. she isn't looking at him. there is a hand touching her hair — a warm, gentle touch. she is something precious. beloved. I love you so much, my dear daughter. of course it's a familiar gesture. it's her father. the weight of his hand, his words. it's a soothing voice that lulls her to sleep. she trusts him — who? Chiron? she trusts him unconditionally, and what he speaks is true, beyond right or wrong, beyond feeling. in that same peaceful voice, he tells her: ]

[ —You must never know love. Because you are a monster.

before Chiron has even finished speaking, Mona recoils from him. the toy rifle clatters to the ground and her back collides with the game stall. her face is pale — not horrified, but shocked. she's looking at Chiron, but doesn't appear to be seeing him, her gaze unfocused. ]

Father— [ and then, just as quickly, she comes to her senses. that strange moment passes. ] ... Oh. I...

[It's so sudden, so vehement, and she looks so far away. A few specters take a look in their direction and then carry on. Chiron's hand stays mid-air just where the crown of her head was but a moment ago.

He reminds her of her father. He has thought of her as a daughter in much the way Achilles sees Rei, an urge that at times feel so silly and dangerous, yet not something he wants to let go of.

Oh. He reminds her of her father.

He pulls his hand back to his chest, looking briefly to see, to make sure that there is no trace of scourge, that he did not inadvertently attack her, hurt her.

Will this curse follow him beyond the grave as well? Hurting those close to him, the ones he loves brought to ruin by association?]

I... [It's so heavy in his chest. If his heart still beat, it would strain against the weight.] ...am sorry.

No!

[ she follows his retreating hand, clutching for it with both of her own. she's hurt him. even if she doesn't know which part of her reaction he found painful — her pulling away from him? comparing him with her father? — it doesn't matter. she has to fix it. he needs to know that whatever he's afraid of isn't true. ]

I'm so sorry, I just— I remembered something so suddenly, and I was surprised... I-it wasn't anything bad, and you didn't do anything wrong!

[He doesn't pull away, would hardly want to, but he looks unsure. It wasn't anything bad? Truly?]

Whatever I reminded you of must have been quite startling. I don't want to hurt you.

[ Mona shakes her head, insistent. ]

It was only that I didn't have any memories of my father before now. I was half-asleep... and he was stroking my hair. That's why...

[ ... why she remembered in that moment. that's all it was, she's trying to convey to him.

she can't tell him the truth. not yet, at least. Mona doesn't entirely understand the words she remembered; her father loved her, she's certain of it. just the memory of him makes her feel safe and calm. so what does it mean, that he said those things to her, and that the person she was in that memory didn't find it alarming or strange at all? —but if Chiron thinks that he caused her to remember something bad, that it was because of some association with him... it will only hurt him. until she's made him see that the recollection of her father is completely separate from him, she can't cast that memory into doubt.

and... there's another thing that lingers in the back of her mind, tugging at her anxieties. he won't speak to Rei. ever since the Underside, where they found out that she isn't who they thought, that she is something else entirely. he doesn't seem to have a problem with Birdie. it's Rei who has somehow changed in his regard. so — how can Mona be so sure that it won't change the way he looks at her, if she tells him what her father said to her...? ]

... It surprised me because I didn't realise I had ever known him. But that memory... was very warm.

[ she isn't lying. not really. ]

Edited 2022-04-24 01:12 (UTC)

Is it...truly all right?

[He should be happy for her. Right? That she does in fact remember something of her father after all, and that it was something so comfortable and warm. It was surprising, not harmful.

Can he be sure it isn't just another lie?

(Mona is not Aera, nor is she Somnus. She is not in the habit of lying to him. That he's aware of. Don't let the grief of remembered past cloud present judgement. These are friends, family. No need for paranoia.)

He relaxes incrementally, the line of his shoulders easing down.]

Still, it was not my intention to spark something so...sudden.

It's alright. I promise.

[ and it is. whatever she heard in that memory, it wasn't Chiron's fault and it doesn't need to hurt him. she'll keep it to herself. (who is she kidding, she thinks, pretending that it's to protect someone else from being hurt; that it isn't just the fear curdling in her gut, the strange unsettled feeling like something worse is to come. a future nightmare of Chiron looking at her differently, once he knows. You must never know love.) it's possible that... it will never even matter. she can hope.

Mona steps closer, tucks herself into Chiron's side and leans her head against his shoulder. ]

Father did say something I don't really understand, though... He told me that I would — [ her face scrunches up as she tries to recall the exact words: ] "lead the people from God's cradle to the expansive world of knowledge."

[It is terribly easy of him to put an arm around her, to lean over her, protective, warm. He did not have children in his living life that he's aware of; he's quite certain history would never have allowed such a thing to come to pass to complicate the royal line. So this shouldn't be so easy. It shouldn't be easy for a monster to love like this. A vessel of sin unworthy of the throne.]

He had high hopes and expectations of you. Some kind of intellectual revolution, perhaps, or even the next step in human evolution itself.

[Which is funny. Not because it's Mona, but because he wonders if that's what the people thought he was to be.]

Seems a little much to put on your shoulders, dear.

[ it's strange. in her memory, that single moment with her father was something precious. even now, just thinking about it, her heart settles comfortably. the heavy weight of his hand on her head. so why does this feel different? when she thinks of Father, she thinks... of the conversations she had with Lupin and the others; every piece of information about Father new to her, even when she was alive. the impression she got from the memories she's regained is not that of a man who she could freely approach. his touch was comforting, but— ]

I wonder if I was supposed to follow in his footsteps. Become a brilliant scientist...

[ she wonders if he ever held her like this even once. and even though they surely must have spoken to each other at some point, it's not something she can recall. as things are, she's not sure that she ever knew him.

Chiron's embrace makes a warmer, happier feeling rise in her chest. it isn't the almost sedative effect of Father's deep voice. she's safe and comfortable just the same, of course, but it's a feeling with more fullness than that. like pieces were missing from that memory. something is itching in the back of her mind that she can't quite reach. ]

I wish I remembered. Even though it's been so long and I've gotten so many memories back, I feel like... I barely know anything about me.

...That seems natural. [There's hesitation, though. It isn't that she's wrong to want to know. Even if there's something terrible on the horizon. She's dead, after all, which means it isn't a happy ending. But...]

Sometimes the memories we get only bring us more questions. And sometimes the answers to those questions are...horrible. I don't know that I could truly say I'd want to go back to not knowing, but in so many ways, it would be easier.

[Birdie offered him a taste and offered once more to finish the job. He can't take it. But the temptation is there.]

How much do you think it matters, who we were before?

If you were asking me how much it mattered to me who everyone else was before, I would say not at all. But who I was... To me, it matters a lot. Because when I didn't have those memories, I was...

[ she doesn't finish the thought: barely even a person. she's said as much to Chiron before — how strange and unsettling it is to think of how she began in Limbo, compared to the rest of them. that either she woke up wrong, or she's just missing something fundamental that the rest of them had, to have all kept their personalities without any memory. and now she thinks of Father stroking her hair, speaking to her about such frightening things, while she sat there, unmoving, half-asleep, and those words stirred no feeling at all in her. like a doll.

she's beginning to worry that something... might be very wrong with her. but, even so— ]

And it's also that... there were people who cared about me, when I was alive. The life I lived mattered very much to me back then. So, even though I won't remember anything when we pass through the Cogs... I'd like to be that person, before I disappear. I want her memory — my memory — to reach the end.

[He remembers all too well. Better, then, that she is as she is now and not the near-lifeless husk she had been before. Better that they face the end of themselves as themselves. Yes, that makes sense. But at the same time, with death, they have already lost themselves. Is this not a torture, to force it all over again?]

Does it frighten you? The idea of unbecoming. To be born into someone new with none of this self of yours left.

[ that's exactly the thing that has weighed heavy on her mind ever since she had enough of a self to be frightened of it. it's not simply death itself that unsettles her — it's how thoroughly they will be erased. everything that has transpired here in Purgatory will, ultimately, mean nothing. some days she wakes up and feels suffocated by it, that looming shadow of the end. she could do anything, make any choice for herself, in any extreme, and yet, soon enough... ]

It's not just me. It's all of this.

[ gently, she extricates herself from Chiron's arm around her and backs a step away from him so that she can look him in the eye. her posture withdraws into herself, hands clasped at her chest and shoulders hiked up. it doesn't take long for her gaze to drop off to the side, self-conscious of the things she's saying. ]

The person that I was... Somebody remembers her. I don't know how she — how I — died, but... she lived. [ she didn't vanish from the world. she exists in Lupin's memory. and as terrible as it is to think that Lupin and the others may not have outlived her, even if they didn't, she would be remembered. by people she passed in the street, by the things she left behind in Saint-Germain's mansion, by Father's legacy. ] But the person that I am now — once we're gone, it will be as if Mona Lisa never existed. The experiences I've had, the ways in which I changed, the things I'm feeling right now... That will all disappear forever.

When we were alive, we left an impression on the world, even in small ways. Here, nobody will ever know that I loved you. It won't just be me that forgets. All of it will just be... gone.

[He's had his own reservations about the whole thing. But Mona captures an angle he hadn't quite considered, or at least wasn't entirely certain of its importance. But it's true. In life, in whatever passed for life before, there is memory, there is proof of existence. Here? To go through the Cogs is to be made anew, and nothing of the self will remain. No one will remember. There will be no lasting impressions, nothing to scream at the heavens that I WAS HERE.

There will be no Mona, no Chiron, no Phoenix, no Achilles. And if everyone dies and comes through here, even the memory will eventually leave, of who they were before.]

I have heard, before, a saying. That so long as there is memory of someone, they are never truly dead.

And we will be truly dead. These beings that exist here and now.

[Nobody will ever know that I loved you. How cruel is that? It is cruel that all would forget Birdie and Rei while they are trapped here. He curls a hand over his heart, would that it were still technically beating.]

We may have to make some difficult decisions as we make our descent. There are...options, in case the Cogs cannot or will not be mended.

[ so he sees it, too. that who they are here and now will be wiped out utterly. but— ]

Options...

[ she hadn't ever thought of any alternatives. regardless of the reason for it, even trying to consider something that didn't involve passing through the Cogs had made her feel as if she would be doing something terrible. because — because she remembers Esme. Esme, who was branded as the enemy so quickly, before they knew anything about her, before she ever poisoned their food. simply for not wanting to disappear. because it was a selfish and bad and evil thing to want.

Chiron is speaking of necessity, possibilities if the Cogs cannot be mended, but. Mona hadn't thought of any other scenario. ]

Like what happened to you? [ she sounds unsure. ] Having your memories taken away.

We may find we want to make other choices when we get down there.

[He had mentioned it to Wolfsbane, of all people, but Mona deserves to know. Chiron shakes his head.]

No--well, that is, technically, an option, but I speak of...Authority. A little birdie has joined us, in a fashion, on our trek, as you may have noticed. She is the Authority of all of Purgatory, but she does not have the same kind of control, perhaps for it being so large of an area. She cannot enact change. But we have posited that perhaps if the power is spread among several people...

[He spreads, too, his hands.] There may be options to change how Purgatory even works. Fix the Cogs, or simply make the Cogs cease to exist. To alter the very nature of this place.

...I hesitate to bring the idea up to some of the others. They would have every right to be suspect of her. And I imagine that the majority opinion is still to fix the Cogs, or to make an attempt. If we do...I wonder if we can choose differently. To choose not to go.

And while the Cogs are broken, we still feel it, do we not? That inherent wrongness.

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