PC: Scaramouche

[sootprints]

Comments

[nascens]

[NOOOOO WHY DIDN'T I GET THE NOTIF FOR THIS this is hateful YOU CAN DROP IF YOU WANT AGUHGH anyway Scaramouche will just meander over, glancing at the posters, too.]

Were these the people in your "game"?

[sootprints]

[ OH NOOO i'm sorry for your notif ]

Yes.

[nascens]

[Looking over these...]

Oh. There he is.

[LAVI. He's famous.]

[sootprints]

Lavi? [ a nod, since she knows he was in hell now. ] He stayed in the same house as I did.

[nascens]

[Oh Lavi. You were the favored chewtoy of so many evil sociopaths.]

What did you think of him?

[sootprints]

Our overseers called him a "clown," and I can see where they were coming from...

But he was a very important friend to me. I entrusted my life to him.

[nascens]

[HE JUST LAUGHS.]

That does fit him well. [A clown...] Our personal demons probably thought the same.

[The rest is too soft and squishy for him, though, so he will set it to the side.]

Did he die? Did you?

[sootprints]

[ some smoke rises at those questions. ]

He didn't. He was one of very few who didn't.

... I did.

[nascens]

[Just watches the smoke rise for a second, quiet.]

I see he didn't do a very good job with the life entrusted to him, then. Surviving to the end against all odds; that's probably where all his decent fortune went.

[AND THEN HE WENT TO HELL.]

[sootprints]

That's not true. He did the right thing.

[ sharply, and with another puff of soot from her head. ]

[nascens]

By living past the rest of you?

[Lavi is a favorite but that also means he will chew on Lavi for sport.]

[sootprints]

I asked him to.

It wasn't the only reason he did, but it was what I wanted, regardless.

[nascens]

[A little curiously:]

Why did you ask him for that? Especially in places like this; that's a difficult thing to ensure.

[sootprints]

... We'd formed a "partnership." In our game, the death of one partner meant that the other would also die, unless they took certain measures to prevent it.

I told him firmly that I did not want him going down with me.

[nascens]

Ah. So you actively sought a way to keep him alive through your own death.

[sootprints]

Yes. Though he was the one who had to do most of the hard work for that.

[nascens]

He's prone to doing that sort of thing, anyway. Even if he's not told to. The one that I knew, at least.

[sootprints]

[ a nod. ]

I put a lot on his shoulders. But I was sure that he, if anyone, could handle it.

[nascens]

Do you find him reliable?

[A little curiously.]

[sootprints]

Yes.

A little unpredictable, and even frustrating at times, but otherwise yes.

[nascens]

[Sounds like Lavi...]

He gave me a name I didn't mind. He also died fairly early, just three weeks in. He wasn't the worst.

[sootprints]

... Ah.

[ ... trying to picture a world where lavi had died, and so early. it feels like everything would have been different. ]

What name did he give you?

[nascens]

[Someday he will tell her the tale of how Lavi got his ass executed over an octopus. With some amusement:]

Ako, as shorthand for aconite.

[sootprints]

Aconite?

[nascens]

A type of poisonous flower, apparently.