fujimaru | Palace Game 6/3

So, you're... here to help me find the way...?

"Do you wish to die?"

It sounds like a sincere question, rather than a threat, for all that he still sounds a little too overly eager about the idea.

"If you do, I will gladly leave you to your own fate! But with your argument, I suspected that you might not wish that--so I will guide you! It is as simple as that."

Yeah, no, can't say it's at the top of my to do list right now. So... Where are we going?

"To the end of the line."

Whatever that means, which he does not appear to be interested in elaborating. But he is looking around like he expects to see something out there, in the bloody-smelling darkness.

...Okay! Are we just waiting for it to appear, then...?

"Patience," he says. "One cannot cross five years in the span of minutes. Unless you wish to make it a battle? There are beasts in the dark that you will regret laying eyes upon."

He glances at Rupert, sidelong. "Though it would be faster."

...So we're going to be here for five years if I don't fight anything?

He laughs at that, putting a hand to his face. "Hardly! These curses devour each other and grow stronger, and hungrier, and worse! But they can be crossed in less time than they have taken to accumulate. Fear not! Have heart! Persistence is the way through!"

Yeah, don't worry, I have a lot of that. Just - tell me when I need to do something.

"Watch," he says, as his pace picks up. The blood around them is bubbling, barely visible in the light he casts around him. "And do not turn your eyes away. Whatever you might see, do not avert your eyes."

[he nods, silent, as he walks faster to match his pace.]

As they walk, he will hear things in the darkness, in the silence from Mr. Edgelord. They're voices--not whispers, exactly, but things that might have been shouts or loud exclamations if they were somehow closer; it's like hearing a fight from some distance away.

At some point, something does make a grab at his ankle.

Whoa—

[he kicks at it instinctively, looking down to see what it is.]

In the dim light, it sure looks like a human face, so covered in thick liquid that the features are mostly indistinguishable--just sockets for the eyes, the rise of a nose, and an open, silently screaming mouth.

—Sorry! Sorry, sorry...

[moving right along with a grimace]

As he moves on, it lets go of him, though that is not the last time something tries to make a grab for him. Sometimes it does feel like a hand reaching up, and sometimes it feels a bit more inhuman--teeth at one point, catching in his pantleg, a pinch like a crab's claws, and something that is probably a tentacle... they're all grabby here.

[he pulls away and keeps on going each time even as he glances down, concerned, and after about the third or fourth time this happens:]

Hey... Do I need to be doing anything about these?

"You can try to calm them, if you like," he says. "They will return, but they can be appeased. It's best to cut them down... but if you are so certain that you are able to calm them, their fury and their fire--then by all means! Go ahead!"

Oh - okay!

[he brightens up a little and then then looks out for the next one he sees, stooping down next to it carefully.]

Hey there...

The face moves its mouth soundlessly; one voice rises above the others--a man's voice, screaming. He doesn't really sound like he's having a great time, unfortunately.

Hey - you're not alone, I'm here. What do you need?

He(?) doesn't seem to hear the words, only clawing further at the air, like he(?) is trying to break free of the blood. But whether or not he has any empathic abilities, there is a sense: of hurt, and anger raging into fury, bewildered at how he's found himself in such a place.

[he's careful as he does, but he reaches out to touch him.]

Hey...

The contact lets him see, for a fleeting moment--

A battlefield, a confused clash of a ragtag army that is somehow managing to overcome the might of the knights of the kingdom. In life, he had been a soldier, proud to serve his king, determined to do whatever was necessary to honor the glory of this city, with its walls of white chalk--

Only to be cut down by an interloper, a monster in human form. And as he falls, he sees, standing just behind his murderer, a young girl with red hair, watching him as the world goes dark.

[gently:]

...I'm so sorry that happened to you.

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart

Re: the delights of a human's heart