spaceship gravitas [o]

[toska]

they say that out in the deepest parts of ceres forest, there is a rock that tells no lies. there is a rock that does not speak, but allows the passerby to speak to it with their hearts.

of course, physis had only been going by the hearsay of the scourge pokemon who remained in ceres after the initial invasion. most of them spoke of mounds of meat as far as the eye could see. the more intelligent hosts gave ... decidedly more interesting answers.

nothing but the heart's deepest desire, a black-eyed alakazam had told him. nothing to anyone who has everything that they could possibly want.

it was physis' ego who had lead her here, she knows. there's a part of her that comes with curiosity - what does physis want?

("but what does it matter to you if we succeed? what will you have left when we have razed the world to the ground?")

she has to want something. everyone wants something. she's alive because she wants something.

there's a point in the forest where the grass turns white and pink. physis figures that is her cue. she pauses. what is she afraid of? she stares at the ground before her. all that she would be facing is herself.

she takes her first few steps, and it feels as if she is being plunged into a facefull of clouds - it was far colder than what one might expect.

physis expects pain. she expects teeth to greet her flesh and flames licking at her soles. she is met with neither.

"it's okay if you're nervous."

the color goes out of her face. this isn't - is it?

"but what kind of man would i be if i let the bride miss her own wedding day?"

zahir is beautiful, and so wonderfully alive in a way that he hasn't been for years.

she cannot look away.

@open

[king]

alex watches physis freeze, eyes focusing on seemingly something, but nothing that alex could see. he lunges forward to grab her, to wake her from her reverie before his eyes glaze over and something takes the scene of the grass. there's a distinct difference, and alex can hear a voice.

"i love you, alex."

for a moment, he freezes, just as he had seen physis do. he feels tears prick at his eyes, before he clenches his jaw. the woman's voice rings back through his head.

"love you so much. i want to fall asleep with you by my side every night. wake up with you in the morning and find you home when i come back from work."

"alex, i love you."

alex screams, wrenching himself from the dream. he grabs physis's arm and shoves her to the ground, falling down to his knees himself.

toska

[toska]

sophia does not want to leave. of course she doesn't. this is her place. this is where she belongs. this is a place in which physis has no power. as long as sophia does not despair, 'physis' is little more than a bad dream.

she does not despair. she smiles at her soon-to-be-husband and pretends that her life will be alright in the end, pretends that she is able to pen her own ending, as zahir had promised.

daniel comes to her in his best suit and gives her a firm hug as he tells sophia that he's sorry, but mother and father will not be able to make it after all. a vacation far, far away. she can see the words form on his lips, even if he does not voice it. sophia wraps her arms around daniel and tells him what she had told him all those years ago, back when she had been a child.

("i don't need mother and father. i only need you.")

she has the both of her prophets now. she doesn't even need the world. the world is here.

her brother turns to zahir and tells him, "i believe in sophia's choices (she chose you). you better too." he leaves them alone with a wink. they are soon approached by a woman.

sophia doesn't know aifa brand's face, but the shard provides. she's beautiful, and for a second, sophia thinks that she cannot compare. how can she compare to this wonderful, gentle woman?

"take care of my son, please." sophia looks her in the eyes and makes her promises. it is an easy thing. she cannot imagine letting zahir slip through her fingers if she tried.

she loves him, and he loves her. this is how it will be, forever and ever. amen.

-

physis falls onto the ground, but she does not wake. her eyes are glassy, as if they are in another world (a better world).

Ytp4aYPx <50 realizes that something is wrong in her vision in the next post


king

[king]

there are phantom touches of a hand on his back, soothing his fears. instead of calming him, the touch burns. alex knows none of it is real, isn't lost in his mind like sophia is. whispers in his ear make him want to scream more, hands tearing out the grass on the ground.

"shh, it's okay alex. i love you."

he knows it's no one, just a trick. there is no one for him to tell him that they love him, no one to be the warm arm around him when he wakes. no, he had no one.

"you're not alone... i'm here for you."

alex feels hope leave his body. the words aren't comforting, they're mocking. he reaches for his capture styler, drawing water on the air. the whirlpool of water appears in the air, dissipating and drenching physis and alex.

it's a cruel awakening. the phantom arm disappears, and alex flinches. no matter the burning horror of imagined love, he yearns for it back.

he falls onto his side, looking over to physis. "physis." he calls weakly, somehow exhausted. he's covered in a thin layer of cold sweat, the whispers branded into his brain. he listens to it like a broken record.

"i love you."

"you're not alone."

"shh, it's okay."

"i'm here for you."

"i love you, alex."

he listens again and again like an addict.

toska

[toska]

they met at pax institute. that's why sophia doesn't even realize that anything has gone wrong when she turns around and sees a green-haired man in the crowd, amongst the other wedding guests. she recognizes plenty of faces. pax had provided her with plenty of colleagues. there is rosalyn summers, the scientist who had produced revolutionary work in reversing the effect of effort value reducing berries. her friend. methuselah is also there, and she's seen without a book for once in her life. sophia thinks that she looks much better without one. they had all been her supporters in one way or another. they had all believed in her potential.

sophia cannot remember the reason of why she had gone to pax institute to begin with. neither can she remember why she had left. it was a place so full of hope and people who believed in the future. moreso than she did (why?).

why would she have left a place like that?

"it's almost time, sophia. we shouldn't keep everyone waiting." zahir tells her, and his words are like a prayer. she turns to him, but she isn't sure why this should happen in a hurry. they've got their entire lives in front of them. they have all the time in the world.

"it's okay if they do. i'll just be here with you." sophia blushes a little as she looks down and takes his hand. "always."

she looks up again, and a terrible sight graces her. her blood runs cold.

"zahir...what happened to your face?"

(for no matter how much sophia wanted a happy ending, she would always want that ending to be real)

86EBdAYb <50 alex is taken into her pseudo-dream
adjust the roll by 10 if alex cares about dragging physis out
<50 the person that he loves is there too

king

?

[king]

there's a white flash before alex's eyes, before he's suddenly at a what looks like a wedding reception. he looks around wildly, knowing this isn't real. his eyes settle on one person: sophia. back when she looked like sophia. he knows instantly then that this isn't real when he sees batin's face scorched to all hell.

"sophia." he calls, rushing over. "sophia!"

sonata is here, of course he is. he walks dreams like the devil walks among virgin corpses. "sophia, it's time to wake up."

for alex, he is done with this nightmare. the shard is cruel, but he will get through it.

alex draws water - whirlpool on sophia.

toska

[toska]

to be fair, zahir didn't look any different from what batin looks like now.

batin is an asshole. zahir, on the other hand, is a gentleman. he grabs her and turns their positions around so that he is the one who is caught in the water attack. more specifically, his back. the force is enough to knock him off his feet, and sophia is quick to catch him in her arms.

why is this happening? why is a guest attacking them?

she wants to protect him. she wants to retaliate. suddenly, a capture styler appears on her wrist - why does she have one? she's only a civilian, she doesn't know much about the ranger union at all.

she panics a little when she catches sight of a scourge gengar. she begins to draw the sign for sacred fire almost instinctively. zahir reaches out to grab her wrist.

"you are a work in progress, sophia. you can be better than this. we can be better than this." they are not words that zahir would say to her. they are the words that she wants him to say to her. "you can make the right choice. you've always been able to make the right choice."

"what should i do?" she pleads to zahir, as if he could provide any answers at all. he's soaked through his suit, and it looks like a baptism. "what am i supposed to do?" 

king

[king]

he's frustrated now. in a fit of irritation/rage, he draws groudon - fissure. the ground opens up, crackling at the edges where it splits. alex dodges out of the way, but knows that this is the way to wake physis the fuck up.

once he is released from her dream, he plans on moving forward to finding the shard.

toska

[toska]

the prismatic shard means to bring her satisfaction. it means to bring satisfaction to them all.

the thing is, sophia has always known what is good and just. she has always known which storybook ending would be the proper one. this is not a storybook. the ground splits below her, and zahir is the one to push her aside.

of course he would. sophia lands on her back in a heap of decorations, but the ground doesn't stop crumbling. she watches her brother die. she watches mrs brand die. she watches a lot of good people die. tl;dr, a lot of good people die.

there is no chorus accompaniment. there are no melancholy flutes. sophia never had zahir's talent for romanticising life and death, could never truly find meaning in the debris that crushes a man's ribcage as the building begins to fall apart. what kind of man was that dying guest? does it matter now?

she thinks that she could almost stop breathing when zahir disappears from view, but life does not emulate art. sophia is disoriented from the shaking of the earth, certainly, but she continues breathing. her heart beats with dyssynchrony to the rest of the world.

sophia closes her eyes.

she is everything that is left in this world, but she is also nothing. less than a ghost - a visitor, maybe. that's right, she is a visitor to a world that is beyond saving.

it is a world that she knows.

she opens her eyes to the green panorama of ceres forest.

"...thank you, alex."
king

[king]

"no need for thanks." he stands and holds his hand out to physis, shaking out his hair of the water. "let's find the shard and leave."

toska

[toska]

she sits up, but she does not reach for his hand. she remains in her sitting position.

"...what reason do we have to want the shard? what will it do for us?"

it is a powerful object, certainly. that didn't necessarily mean that it had utility for the agents. 
king

[king]

he dropped his hand. "what will it do against us is a question asked as well. if an eos had this in their possession, we could not get anywhere near them, as well as vice versa."

alex turned to leave. "if you do not wish to accompany me, that is fine."

toska

[toska]

"...if you cannot approach the shard later, then would you expect to be able to approach the shard now? we will either fail here if the shard's influence is strong, or eos will fail to stop us later if its influence is weak." either way, it's in their best interest to stay away.  

the mamoswine approaches his partner and hangs his head in regret. she pats his head.

"...it's okay, old friend. i know that you wanted to see him too."
king

[king]

alex shrugs. "no harm in trying." he turns and leaves.

later he would get lost in a maze of forestry and blocked by intangible prickly thorns. he would get frustrated and simply leave.