TRIAL IV

[lesmodsalouette]

Trial

Another Saturday, but this Saturday is your last Saturday. If everything holds, if everything works out. After all you've been through, are you capable of being an optimist? The carnival calls regardless, furniture arranged around as they always are with banquet table and pit in the middle.

This week's new offerings are: a fluffy loaf of a certain type of rye bread, a hearty beef stew and an assortment of fresh pies with candied fruit and cream.

For the last time, find out who killed two of your own: G'raha Tia and Sariel.

(( OOC: Welcome to your first trial! You'll have 7 hours (until 8 PM EDT/5 PM PDT) to vote one (1) person guilty of murder. As this is scapegoat style, a correct vote is not necessary. Please remember to vote unless otherwise discussed with the mods, as that is our AC for this game ))

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[coldseep]

( Of all answers to his turn, of the censure and the dismissal, this one is the one that strikes a chord within Hwylryn the most. For all he has been dismissed as insincere, he has been genuine from beginning to end - if he had not, how could he have suffered over loss after loss? How could he not have driven himself mad with grief, until he reached this as his sole conclusion?

He'd thought it over, day by day, week by week, and though he wishes he had a few hundred more years, in this short time he had left before he would have to choose to return to die or make good on his promises and remain alive - this seemed to be the only arithmetic that allowed him a future.

Or, perhaps, it was the only arithmetic he wanted to use. The only one that did not tell him that senseless death is simply a part of life. That did not suggest to him to just do better next time. That did not comfort him and say that it is okay if he's failed for thousands of years - don't give up hope! He can still change. It's not too late.

Though he's on the outs with them, he agrees with Angelo and Chara in a particular regard: such platitudes could not penetrate the darkest parts of his heart. Could not reach its seafloor, where his despair settles like murk.

And so he didn't want to hear them. He was scared of them. He abhorred them.

But.

Because his feelings are authentic, Cain's sincerity reaches him, too. It sifts the sands there, even if it does not dispel his grief, his heart. It is a light that penetrates the waters as deep as light can go - and settles in a layer of his heart's sea that he did not think could see sun.

Hwylryn thinks now, as he has before - as he looks up at Cain and sees his struggle, his regret, his conflict - that the Northerner that has linked themselves to Cain is a fortunate one.

Would his life been different, if he had found someone of Central, someone like Cain, and remained beside them?

Would he have been able to change, before his path became set - before he grew into a shell too stiff, too thick for him to survive in, as he had now, like certain creatures of the sea?

The essence of looping time - branching time - is strange, to him. He wonders if there does exist another life, where he had met some form of Cain, and he had changed, and perhaps he still held his grief with him, but he had become a different sort of thing than the creature he is now, staring up at these mismatched eyes - hurt because of him; hurt for him. )

... I wish...

( A useless sentiment, and certainly one he hadn't earned. But, selfishly, as he's been selfish this entire time - selfishly, he says it: )

... I wish we'd met at another time. I wonder if... I would have spent my years happier, if I'd had someone like you to change me.

( It's not your fault, is what he means. It's what he hopes to convey. )

Thank you for your trust, Cain. I'm glad Akira has someone with you at his side. ( ... ) And... I hope you won't be persuaded from your instinct, the next time you're right.

( What he abstained from saying, when he'd brought up Gwawlyn at the trial, is that he is as he is to survive. He is charming, playful, and wheedling - he is so good at skating by with second chances that turn to thirds and fourths and fifths.

It isn't fair that he took advantages of a Central wizard for this, but Hwylryn hasn't been fair to any child here, has he? Not Junior, nor Cain. )

me typoing that sfx like a pro

[uiscebeatha]

[ This, of all things, is what does it.

It's been a long time, time longer still of loops they don't remember, to spend in a series of ordeals. One after another these deaths and revelations have poked and prodded and torn at his spirit, but each time he's bounced back. Even when he lost the remaining half of his precious roommates, he scrounged up what strength was left in him to press onward. It's not so dissimilar to their investigation into Nova, when he stood on the precipice of a broken spirit but was pulled back at the last moment.

That story had ended with trust and camaraderie, lighting a flame of hope in his heart.

But this—this cracks it.

Cain's expression twists. He hates what he hears. He hates these what ifs as much as the ones in the photography room, even though these are decidedly brighter than the ones hanging in the dark. He hates that all of the choices Hwylryn could have made, the ones he's chosen have led them here.

Tears pool in his eyes, but gravity can't keep them there. One, two beads, tiny droplets of mana, rain onto Hwylryn's face.

His voice shakes. He tugs at the fraying strings keeping his heart together to make himself intelligible. ]

This was the another time.

[ Like Hwylryn—indicative of the magic they share, a faint bond of their homeworld—the concept of time as something to manipulate evades him. Hwylryn's story had long finished in his book, another in a long line of adversaries the sage's wizards had faced. Not once did he ever think he'd meet him again. Not once did he ever think he'd ever have the opportunity to get to know him better, extend a hand in a show of trust. ]

We had this second chance, and you...you...

[ ...didn't take it.

More than anything, that's what breaks his heart the most. ]