[After Molly's had a little bit of time in the pod to not be immediately at risk of death, Harrow will - well, she's probably not gone far anyway. Enough that they there's probably a little bit of blood on her still.
He'll find if he moves she'll come over to see how he's doing. She's not crying or throwing a fit - she's that sort of cold but gentle mood that only overtakes her from time to time.]
[He's been stuck in that pod for longer than he wanted to be (he only wanted to be in here two minutes because he is deeply impatient) but at least he's not dying anymore. just limping on out. He'll go back in later.
he is, however, immediately pulling his coat off to lay it over one of the hospital beds in here, making a very irritated face.]
[he laughs - wheezily, like a broken dog toy - and then immediately flinches because. no. he should not be out this early. but it's fine. his face is still a mess, the nose is still clearly halfway broken, and the hole in his chest is just barely healed over. but he seems fine with this.]
You can take it up with the Avatars. I'm sure they'll correct it for you.
[He still is. honestly, pain isn't a huge deal to him. not when he's not really dying. he just (stiffly. he's moving very stiffly.) picks at the coat, looking a little upset that there's some blood soaked down the front of it.
harrow might recognize he's moving a bit like an amatuerishly reanimated corpse at the moment.]
No shit. [But a little more seriously.] Did he do something to you? Did he hurt you. Or did he hurt. . . someone. . . else? [The way she says that is a little oddly strained.]
No, he didn't hurt me-- Just. [REALLY BAD VIBES.] We were faced with versions of some of the others here. They seemed possessed, in a way, frantic and scared and we subdued them. The place was trying to make us think that we should turn on one another, we weren't sure ... who was real and who wasn't. He immediately suggested killing them. And then did so.
[though. he wasn't the first one to.]
I refused. I suppose it's why I was the last one to leave. Thought I might-- [What, do you not like it, Mollymauk? Are you going to bleed to death in this cold room, hmmm?] Well. I told this place my decision already.
[She listens to him just - talk, just explain it all, a little stunned. As though she had asked for it, as though she needed to know about the tortures they had gone through all for the sake of her distrusting a clown she already distrusted to a fairly ridiculous degree. She's a little relieved, in a way, that their decision had not been - what her group's had been.
She just gets up, and goes over to him, and places a hand gently on his arm.]
Molly, so sentimental. [She sounds like she's saying this with a lot of fondness, though.] The first thing any necromancer learns is if it's coming at you and there's something inside it that shouldn't be there, it is not the moment for empathy.
[But. She doesn't pull her hand away, just leans against him a little.]
. . . Every one of us failed to do what was asked of us as well, as we all died for it. So I suppose that is the lesson to be learned.
Am I not something inside that shouldn't be there as well?
[he's mostly said that in a joking tone, though, not very seriously.
his arm is very cold at the moment. not the usual unusual warmth of a tiefling. but he doesn't pull away either, leaning back against her.]
Just before-- it showed me Yasha. She was making the same face that the others were. Forced to do something beyond her control, she was attacking [or. killed.] Beauregard.
That was all I could think about, in that moment. Her face.
Perhaps, but you've yet to come at me with murderous intent. Merely intent to annoy.
[The coldness worries her - she'll press the back of her hand to his forehead - cold there, too?]
. . . We all thought we had failed a test. But having talked to Grace, I'm not sure. You each decided differently, and decided to approach it in different ways. Perhaps the meaning was always only that there was a decision to be made in the first place.
Oh, yes, they're the worst. I'm not even sure whether they've killed anyone here, but I'm certain that they would if they had the slightest incentive to. I did consider trying to do something about it myself, but - it wouldn't have helped matters.
[Anyway.]
You don't have to warn me. I know. But I also think it's a distraction, to focus on the openly vile to the exclusion of other motives. That's a word that keeps coming up in discussions with Greed - motive.
Yes, I-- [...] I think that may have been the point of this place.
It asked us to reckon with how much we truly desired that which we came here for. If we'd be willing to turn on a friend, how much we trust the others here.
I think so, too. Though ours wasn't so pointed, in that regard.
[She sighs.]
There was a child with us, in ours. She was strong and brave. We didn't wind up as hurt as any of you - even when we made mistakes, she came to our defense.
At the end, we. . . [She closes her eyes, like she still doesn't have the words for this.] It became clear that to survive, we would have to kill her. She asked us to. She only wanted to help us.
Needless to say we did not agree. I think perhaps a simpler test than yours.
[he moves to just put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. she can probably hear how terrible his breathing is like this, how it sounds a bit like he's struggling to get air in his lungs, but he trusts her not to point it out at the moment.
This one is difficult? He disagrees that their test was simpler. It's the idea he's had to wrestle with, isn't it? It'd been so simple and easy to sacrifice himself for something he cared about, but Beauregard following him here--
it's easier to be the one who leaves.]
I'm sorry.
[There's a lot of things to say here, but. Maybe just that's the thing she needs to hear right now. It was something that was too cruel to ask.]
[No, she's going to grumble and try (extremely, extremely gently) to push him off.]
No, stop it. I've had enough of people deciding I ought to be comforted today. I am fine. It was awful, and I am still very sad about it, but I do not need to be consoled for it at this particular moment.
[Hmph. She crosses her arms - end of story.]
You on the other hand, have become a particularly vivid anatomy lesson. And. . . I know that it cannot have been easy, to make that decision consciously, far more than we did.
[he refuses to be pushed off, sorry. but he does relax a little. just letting his arm hang there.]
I don't know. I-- If it was trying to tell us something, maybe I took the wrong lesson from it. There's this ... when we first arrived, and I was speaking to Beauregard, there was clearly something she wasn't telling me. I had a feeling what it might be. She'd asked to my face if it was really me, Mollymauk. Not in the way you ask someone if they're a dream or not. And sidelong references to a future I was not a part of.
So, for once in my miserable life, I thought I should look behind the curtain. I asked for her to tell me what she meant. And in return, she asked me if I was sure I didn't want pretend for a while more. It was then she told me that Lucien haunted them. That there's a reason it isn't as simple as a cleric and enough gold can't fix the issue. And I decided I wanted to go back to pretending. But you can't exactly unlearn the things you know, once you've seen them. Can you?
But that question is the one that keeps fucking rattling around my brain. After I decided I wouldn't do it, I heard it again. Don't you want to pretend a little longer? In my head. And then that I'd made my decision.
[I don't know, man. You can unlearn them if you have access to a necromancer who can help you while you open up your brain.
Anyway, she frowns, listening to all of this.]
Isn't that odd, though? If pretending here means avoiding one's problems even though they have a lot of useful information and access to an extremely talented necromancer, then - was it suggesting you'd failed to face them once again? Or was the meaning that this time you had faced up to something?
[TENABLE, LONG TERM SOLUTIONS THAT ACTUALLY WORK, HARROW
anyway he just. shrugs. because he doesn't really know either way? but he'll continue.]
It ... wanted us to make the obvious decision. We felt this urge - or, I suppose I'm assuming the others did too, by the way they reacted so quickly. That the only way we could get what we wanted was to trust only ourselves. The others had weapons, had motive, and if you didn't stop them, what would happen to you. To the ones you loved. To the wish you wanted so bad.
But I don't know, I-- if I couldn't tell who was real. Douman's suggestion made it sound so easy to them, but in that moment. [He looks at his hands at this.] I said I'd fight for Beauregard, and I'm fucking fighting every minute of my fucking day, but I said I wouldn't let this place drag me into muck and blood. Fuck that.
[She sort of stares at him while he says this, and then places her hands over his and squeezes, meeting his eyes with something in hers that looks a little like pride.]
What was the urge, specifically? This may be important.
[he pauses, while he struggles to put it to words.]
... You want it. You want what you desire more than anything else. Anybody else? They're nothing. They are in the way. This whole place has just been illusions. How do you know what's real and what isn't?
[It is something to think about, isn't it? She seems curious and thoughtful, and she even laughs a little, humorlessly.]
Hah. All along, I'd thought we failed. And I felt as you did - fuck it. If that was failure, I accept failure. But now I wonder if I misunderstood.
[But her gaze turns dark again, looking up at him with absolute seriousness.]
I am going to tell you something, because I have permission to do so from each of the four involved. It is not something we have spoken of other than with one another and the Avatars, and your dispensation is only to hear it, not to speak of it.
Furthermore, you will not pet me like a frightened little emotional support cat when I tell it. You will accept it as information relevant to your circumstances that I am choosing to convey to you.
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w3; thursday
He'll find if he moves she'll come over to see how he's doing. She's not crying or throwing a fit - she's that sort of cold but gentle mood that only overtakes her from time to time.]
Hello. Feeling better?
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he is, however, immediately pulling his coat off to lay it over one of the hospital beds in here, making a very irritated face.]
Much improved, thank you.
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[She just watches him, doesn't try to stop him from doing what he wants, though keeps on eye on whether he really seems stable enough to come out.]
It says you're good at dying, but you've been trying and failing at it all week.
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You can take it up with the Avatars. I'm sure they'll correct it for you.
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[. . .]
Try not to laugh. I will assist you in that with my company.
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[He still is. honestly, pain isn't a huge deal to him. not when he's not really dying. he just (stiffly. he's moving very stiffly.) picks at the coat, looking a little upset that there's some blood soaked down the front of it.
harrow might recognize he's moving a bit like an amatuerishly reanimated corpse at the moment.]
... Be careful around Douman.
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No shit. [But a little more seriously.] Did he do something to you? Did he hurt you. Or did he hurt. . . someone. . . else? [The way she says that is a little oddly strained.]
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[Though that seems to not be the Offending part.]
No, he didn't hurt me-- Just. [REALLY BAD VIBES.] We were faced with versions of some of the others here. They seemed possessed, in a way, frantic and scared and we subdued them. The place was trying to make us think that we should turn on one another, we weren't sure ... who was real and who wasn't. He immediately suggested killing them. And then did so.
[though. he wasn't the first one to.]
I refused. I suppose it's why I was the last one to leave. Thought I might-- [What, do you not like it, Mollymauk? Are you going to bleed to death in this cold room, hmmm?] Well. I told this place my decision already.
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[She listens to him just - talk, just explain it all, a little stunned. As though she had asked for it, as though she needed to know about the tortures they had gone through all for the sake of her distrusting a clown she already distrusted to a fairly ridiculous degree. She's a little relieved, in a way, that their decision had not been - what her group's had been.
She just gets up, and goes over to him, and places a hand gently on his arm.]
Molly, so sentimental. [She sounds like she's saying this with a lot of fondness, though.] The first thing any necromancer learns is if it's coming at you and there's something inside it that shouldn't be there, it is not the moment for empathy.
[But. She doesn't pull her hand away, just leans against him a little.]
. . . Every one of us failed to do what was asked of us as well, as we all died for it. So I suppose that is the lesson to be learned.
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[he's mostly said that in a joking tone, though, not very seriously.
his arm is very cold at the moment. not the usual unusual warmth of a tiefling. but he doesn't pull away either, leaning back against her.]
Just before-- it showed me Yasha. She was making the same face that the others were. Forced to do something beyond her control, she was attacking [or. killed.] Beauregard.
That was all I could think about, in that moment. Her face.
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[The coldness worries her - she'll press the back of her hand to his forehead - cold there, too?]
. . . We all thought we had failed a test. But having talked to Grace, I'm not sure. You each decided differently, and decided to approach it in different ways. Perhaps the meaning was always only that there was a decision to be made in the first place.
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I don't-- blame Grace. Or Gojou. The place was putting thoughts in our head. It wanted us to turn on each other.
But Douman did it so easily. Naturally.
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[Anyway.]
You don't have to warn me. I know. But I also think it's a distraction, to focus on the openly vile to the exclusion of other motives. That's a word that keeps coming up in discussions with Greed - motive.
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It asked us to reckon with how much we truly desired that which we came here for. If we'd be willing to turn on a friend, how much we trust the others here.
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[She sighs.]
There was a child with us, in ours. She was strong and brave. We didn't wind up as hurt as any of you - even when we made mistakes, she came to our defense.
At the end, we. . . [She closes her eyes, like she still doesn't have the words for this.] It became clear that to survive, we would have to kill her. She asked us to. She only wanted to help us.
Needless to say we did not agree. I think perhaps a simpler test than yours.
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This one is difficult? He disagrees that their test was simpler. It's the idea he's had to wrestle with, isn't it? It'd been so simple and easy to sacrifice himself for something he cared about, but Beauregard following him here--
it's easier to be the one who leaves.]
I'm sorry.
[There's a lot of things to say here, but. Maybe just that's the thing she needs to hear right now. It was something that was too cruel to ask.]
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No, stop it. I've had enough of people deciding I ought to be comforted today. I am fine. It was awful, and I am still very sad about it, but I do not need to be consoled for it at this particular moment.
[Hmph. She crosses her arms - end of story.]
You on the other hand, have become a particularly vivid anatomy lesson. And. . . I know that it cannot have been easy, to make that decision consciously, far more than we did.
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[he refuses to be pushed off, sorry. but he does relax a little. just letting his arm hang there.]
I don't know. I-- If it was trying to tell us something, maybe I took the wrong lesson from it. There's this ... when we first arrived, and I was speaking to Beauregard, there was clearly something she wasn't telling me. I had a feeling what it might be. She'd asked to my face if it was really me, Mollymauk. Not in the way you ask someone if they're a dream or not. And sidelong references to a future I was not a part of.
So, for once in my miserable life, I thought I should look behind the curtain. I asked for her to tell me what she meant. And in return, she asked me if I was sure I didn't want pretend for a while more. It was then she told me that Lucien haunted them. That there's a reason it isn't as simple as a cleric and enough gold can't fix the issue. And I decided I wanted to go back to pretending. But you can't exactly unlearn the things you know, once you've seen them. Can you?
But that question is the one that keeps fucking rattling around my brain. After I decided I wouldn't do it, I heard it again. Don't you want to pretend a little longer? In my head. And then that I'd made my decision.
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Anyway, she frowns, listening to all of this.]
Isn't that odd, though? If pretending here means avoiding one's problems even though they have a lot of useful information and access to an extremely talented necromancer, then - was it suggesting you'd failed to face them once again? Or was the meaning that this time you had faced up to something?
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anyway he just. shrugs. because he doesn't really know either way? but he'll continue.]
It ... wanted us to make the obvious decision. We felt this urge - or, I suppose I'm assuming the others did too, by the way they reacted so quickly. That the only way we could get what we wanted was to trust only ourselves. The others had weapons, had motive, and if you didn't stop them, what would happen to you. To the ones you loved. To the wish you wanted so bad.
But I don't know, I-- if I couldn't tell who was real. Douman's suggestion made it sound so easy to them, but in that moment. [He looks at his hands at this.] I said I'd fight for Beauregard, and I'm fucking fighting every minute of my fucking day, but I said I wouldn't let this place drag me into muck and blood. Fuck that.
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What was the urge, specifically? This may be important.
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... You want it. You want what you desire more than anything else. Anybody else? They're nothing. They are in the way. This whole place has just been illusions. How do you know what's real and what isn't?
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Greed, or . . . Envy. A distrust of the others. How they could turn on you. But greed seems to fit better, doesn't it?
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Hah. All along, I'd thought we failed. And I felt as you did - fuck it. If that was failure, I accept failure. But now I wonder if I misunderstood.
[But her gaze turns dark again, looking up at him with absolute seriousness.]
I am going to tell you something, because I have permission to do so from each of the four involved. It is not something we have spoken of other than with one another and the Avatars, and your dispensation is only to hear it, not to speak of it.
Furthermore, you will not pet me like a frightened little emotional support cat when I tell it. You will accept it as information relevant to your circumstances that I am choosing to convey to you.
Understood?
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