cancry | 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...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.

Luxuria Intro Log

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject