sootprints | PC: Scaramouche

[Looking over these...]

Oh. There he is.

[LAVI. He's famous.]

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

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

What did you think of him?

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.

[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?

[ some smoke rises at those questions. ]

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

... I did.

[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.]

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

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

By living past the rest of you?

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

I asked him to.

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

[A little curiously:]

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

... 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.

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

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

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

[ a nod. ]

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

Do you find him reliable?

[A little curiously.]

Yes.

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

[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.

... 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?

[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.

Aconite?

A type of poisonous flower, apparently.

A flower that you like?

[ or did lavi just assign you this flower. ]

I don't mind it now.

[Lavi just assigned it to him and he decided to keep it.]

For an idiot, he's surprisingly insightful.

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