( closed ) the only ones who need love are the ones who don't receive enough

[gradenine]

WHO: roland and certain people
WHAT: roland came back after disappearing mysterious and realized some really bad things. plotting comment for reference.
WHERE: the garden
WHEN: around the middle of the month, before the event
WARNINGS: body horror, violence, talks about murder and other nihilistic shit. also major project moon spoilers. see his opt-out for more info.


[ roland emerged out of the darkness like a dream.

or rather, he stumbles into the relatively new location as if he woke up from a horrible nightmare, clutching at his head as he makes his way towards the tea-party setup. this was the last place he'd remembered before vanishing, but the details were foggy. he wasn't even aware how long it's been. all he knew was that he met someone terrible who gave him equally terrible news, but he's used to disappointments -- even more so in this desolate imitation of a city.

someone had left green tea on the table, still hot. binah had told him that green tea is good for him, so he may as well take the load off and hope that the drink will clear his mind, and make him forget the bad news he'd received from argalia.

ah, yes. argalia is here, angelica's own flesh and blood. angelica had come back wrong, he gleefully. right. totally normal.

...

luckily, this isn't the first time this abnormality has taken over roland. he's used to the way the muscular sinews bloom across his body like a second skin (or even a flesh wound), the multitude of eyes blinking themselves open and roving their pupils around to scan the area. a gnarled leg of a bird sprouts from the top of his head, flexing its digits. his own left arm, meanwhile, has morphed into a bulbous club made of muscle and claw, which he is using to thrash at a nearby flowerbed for speaking out of line. ]

Why is he here... Why. Why. Tell me...

[ "i know why he's here," the half-dead flowers insist. "nothing ever goes my way. this city is out to get me, too."

but just because he's too engrossed in destroying the flowers within reach, it doesn't mean that the bulging eyes won't notice whoever comes into the garden, their unblinking gazes boring into anyone's eyes should anyone stumbles this sorry sight. he is making quite the ruckus, after all. ]

Comments

everyone's just lining up to punch him ok

[gradenine]

[ oh, don. unsubtle as always. the eyes that cover roland's skin blink wildly as roland himself finally looks over to see who tf dares to disturb his mental breakdown, and when he sees that it's don--

well, he doesn't speak at first. he just smiles his eerie smile, the blue eye that doesn't belong to him twitching as he shuffles over to her. he doesn't need to say anything. the EGO can do that for him, speaking in different dissonant voices that came from other people from a long time ago. ]

"Hello. Hell-o. He… llo… Hello."
"Mon… ster. That… mons… ter… That monster… why is it here…"
"el… llo… Hello? ello… Hello?"

[ "i can never take her seriously even if i tried," the flowers pipe up as their peanut gallery. "she's not even aware of the truth. she doesn't deserve to know." "or maybe... she doesn't ever want to know." ]

[icanfixer]

[ ever to her credit, don quixote doesn't step back.

she should, but the only time she'd ever felt herself so appalled she'd done so without thought was seeing just what humans can become, what they can do to one another in thousands, millions, billions of years time. the normalcy of w corp's workings will always elude her and the some others, and it's probably the most normal thing about her. for now, she gazes into the eyes across roland's body, into the one that isn't his and the one that is, and remembers what angela said.

the flowers aren't lies. whatever they speak is just something you don't want to say.

that said. ]

Thou art rather creepy.

[ plain and simple. many eyes to jab at though, that's nice, though the flowers are hard to ignore. nothing insightful or inciting, but curious enough to catch her ear. ]

What truth do thee speak of? And what monster, besides thyself, begs thy mention?

[ because it isn't her. ]

[gradenine]

[ roland looking creepy is like spotting a fork in the kitchen. don doesn't step back, which is good -- he doubts that anyone from their city is able to turn away from the abomination he's now become.

he doesn't answer, though. he wasn't the one speaking at that time. the lobocorp employees that Nothing There can beg for their lives as much as they want, but it's too late. nobody will come and save them, like how there's no way roland can be saved from this.

"i've got nothing to say to her. she wouldn't listen to me." "i'll just kill her over and over again until she learns her lesson." "she has to suffer like everyone else in that shithole of a city."

so he lunges forward, morphed arm raised to strike her side. small blessings that this nothing there has been badly nerfed -- it's no longer ALEPH-tier at best. ]

[icanfixer]

[ it's not ALEPH-tier, but don isn't in charge of categorizing their threat level anyway -- she doesn't know what faust would consider roland, whatever roland's become -- but it's the last thing on her mind as she dodges forward this strike at least, tensed at i'll just kill her over and over again, thinking she might get closer with the blunt, wooden end of her improv'd weapon.

still. still. "who is to say i have not suffered? have we not all--" ]

It is thine own decision to bring that suffering with thee, Sir Roland.

[ she doesn't want the flowers talking to each other. much less about the thoughts that flit from one edge of her mind to another, that she keeps sealed behind a smile. ]

It is no fault of mine, [ let her try and jab this into his throat now, thoughtlessly unprotected as her backside is, ] that it rubs thee the wrong way that I do not!

[ because that's what it is, isn't it? she knows, from the various scoldings of her others, of vergilius and the anger she'd gotten at the hands of roland before, she doesn't have the most popular opinions of the people back home. there's others outside their world that have differing nuances too, but the base was always the same. is that not proof enough? ]

[gradenine]

[ his decision, she says. that's easier said than done. he can't help but suffer. that's how life in their city is all about. and the fact that don is insisting that it's all his fault --

well. it grinds his gears, so to speak.

"no... everyone has to suffer. you can only hide your anguish behind your smile for so long." "that's what i did."

nothing there may not be an ALEPH anymore, but it's still more than capable of taking down anything that gets in its way. the eyes spot don's unguarded backside, and roland quickly evades the sinner's attack by spinning on his heel and delivering one mighty kick right at her back with an inhuman roar. ]

[icanfixer]

[ it connects, it knocks her forward and the breath right out of her chest. but she'll still get up, annoying enough, using the fork to right herself as she spits back. ]

Thou'rt wrong! And thee know it too -- one should not suffer just because another does, it is only by extending a hand we are able to move forward!

[ to change, to better the city they live in; "i am sorry none held a hand to thee, if that is the case; i wish i could have, as futile thee may think it to have been."

blood begets blood, angela had said, and it's the only thing the city knows to do. don quixote won't attack again. better to focus on striking when she can and dodging when she can't, against the already impossibly experienced "grade nine". ]

[gradenine]

[ roland leers at her words. that kind of mindset's so painfully naive, sounding more like an actual grade 9 fixer who had just entered the business. just what grade is this woman anyway?! ]

You don't have the power... to change the City. You don't know... the half of what's really going on. The source of the City's suffering... the endless cycle of hatred and suffering... You'd rather turn away from it if you knew.

[ "i can no longer remember. no matter how hard i want to forget, i can't get rid of this feeling." "most colors don't even want to change."

all except one, and even then, vergilius would've agreed with him on some points. ]

[icanfixer]

'Tis only to harp on me that I have finally heard thy voice, is it?! Sir Roland, I should not turn my gaze from what is important to me -- even if I must uproot the Head itself!

[ it doesn't matter who it is, be syndicate or someone more lawful; if they're pressing down on the necks of innocents, of the weak or downtrodden, if people are forced to do what they don't want just to live,

then don'll strike what's above them down, the flowers quiet at her assertion. she lowers herself more, a firm heel into the ground and eyes focused on roland before her. cases of distortion are easy to take care of. not without hefty loss, but they've been getting better -- she's been getting better, for all her headstrong faults. they manage it, anyhow. ]

Even if I should die doing so. [ she'll come back, here and there. ] It matters little if I do not have the power, or the support of those like thyself and the many of the City. I shall do what I feel is right -- it matters not if the one who stands before me is a Color or not!

[ how many times had she picked a fight, unwisely, with vergilius? it didn't matter if he was the red gaze; if don quixote felt she was right, then she was right. simple as that. foolishly, painfully naive, but simple as that. it's what drives her. ]

To live is to suffer, but it is also to laugh. Why would thee choose aught else?

[gradenine]

[ roland really spoke out to berate don, that's how heinous she is in his eyes, his pitch-black heart. ]

There's nothing to laugh about... in this situation of ours. [ the flowers on his side quiet down, for he is actually telling the truth. ] You claim that you're doing it for the sake of others, but you're blinded with your own self-righteousness. You don't actually care what happens to others as long as you feel good about yourself.

[ nothing there gurgles in response to roland's outburst, its eyes roving all over don's person. roland then shuffles towards her, dragging his club arm across the floor. ]

You're going to realize one day that the Colors you worship are nothing like you think of them to be. All of them have killed with no remorse, like how you have killed yourself with no remorse.

[ then he lurches forward with breakneck speed, wielding his club like a honed swordmaster as he takes another swing at her. ]

I would know.

[icanfixer]

[ it's not easy to dodge, so she doesn't.

her ankles ache as her heels dig in painfully to the grass, the ground, shoulders set and even with the downsize on nothing there's strength a streak of dirt remains where she'd been--

of course, it doesn't take much to throw her off onto her backside again, but as ever don'll get to standing as best she can, even if she's beyond beginning to ache. ]

I do not need thee to put words in this mouth of mine. Just as I do not know thee, thou'rt unaware of myself.

[ simple as that. "the red mist would never," they cry in her place, "i shan't forgive thee for speaking so poorly of her," angered as can be. don has killed with no remorse. she'll be the first to say so, for justice and the like -- but killed all the same, without a second thought, even her own allies. that's true. it isn't anything to get angry over. but someone as renowned and a stunning example of all that was labeled hope as the red mist...

can't let that go unaddressed, in some way. it doesn't matter if roland lets her stand again, if she's pinned she'll still talk, if she's choked she'll struggle them out, if she's suffocated the flowers will talk for her-- so on, so on. ]

-- But it is because I have come to learn what it means to care for, and be cared for by others, that I can say that my justice is-- is nothing self-righteous -- it is born from my desire to protect those who I can. Because I want to protect them.

[ the flowers are silent.

perhaps they wouldn't have been a month, a week ago. but they're quiet now. ]

[gradenine]

[ for a moment, the entire garden falls silent. roland lets her words hang in the air for a moment, as though waiting for the flowers to contradict don.

it doesn't come. she's that stupidly naive, but not in the way vergilius is. it ticks roland off so bad that he just slams his foot down on don's backside, preventing her from getting up and rolling away. ]

You don't get what the Red Mist is all about. [ "she also couldn't save everyone. that was her downfall." ] There's no one worth saving in the City. We all die anyway. And not everyone can just simply come back like nothing happened--!

[ he then aggressively kicks don. stomps on her again. kick, stomp, kick, stomp with all the aggression of a man who has heard of all that before. ]

You can protect them all you want, [ with his normal arm, he picks don up by the hair. ] but who will come to save you from me?

[ "you're no match for me. and you know it." ]