lifenet | stone of farspeech, November 19th

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stone of farspeech, November 19th

Hello, everyone! It's Pyrrha. [Her voice rings out with a usual amount of chipperness.] I'll be honest... I'm not quite sure how to start this off.

A couple of people recently reminded me that my birthday was last month. It's probably a bit odd that I'm bringing it up now, but after how busy everything was, I just completely forgot about it. [There's a pause.] Another year. I suppose that makes me... nineteen now? Two years away from home, in two different places.

[A few seconds of silence stretch out from the stone. Whatever Pyrrha's thinking about, she snaps back to attention quickly.]

Well, there's things I need to get done today, so it's probably best if I get back to it soon. [ahem] I hope you're all having a good day... or, at least a better one.

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Well! Happy birthday! Though I am sorry that you have been away from home for so long...?

[It ends only on a very slight questioning note. Asgore knows enough people who weren't planning on returning home, after.]

Well, it isn't for lack of trying. There was a short while were I got to return home, but then I got scooped up and brought here!

[She thought her life before all of this was eventful, but the universe continued to prove her wrong.]

I'd love to go back home and visit someday, but... it always feels a little strange, after being in space and all.

I can understand that. I have never been to space, but this is not my first time being brought to another world, either. The thought of going home is...strange now.

[For so many other reasons, too, but. Not important.]

It... is sometimes strange to consider, isn't it?

[And sometimes, she isn't sure quite how to feel about that. Sad? It's definitely that. Elated? Well that would be wrong, wouldn't it?]

You might like space - I certainly did, even if it took a while... [For several reasons.] There's always something new to see. And plenty of new faces from different worlds, kind of like here as a matter of fact.

That does sound nice. I have never had the opportunity to go to space, but I may yet someday. My companions and I, from the last world, came into possession of the devices used to bring us there when it was all over. Most of us intended to use them to return home, but a few had plans of travel.

Of course, I did not manage to bring mine here. [That would have been too easy or something.]

...You were taken from your world by a device? Was there a reason for that?

[A shame that he didn't get to keep it, but it probably would have wet at some point anyway.]

Edited 2018-11-26 01:37 (UTC)

Ah, well, yes. There were thirty of us, from various worlds. It was all rather complicated.

[And sort of unpleasant, but he's told other people here all about it, so...well, at least it does have a happy ending.]

The intent was for us to kill each other in order to escape. But it is all right - we are all okay now.

[...

There's a long silence. And just when Agore may think that they've been disconnected-]

Holy shit.

[He sort of already thought she'd hung up; Asgore startles a little at the sound. And then - well, he was bound to upset someone with that story sooner or later, wasn't he? He should have been more circumspect.]

Ah, my apologies if that was upsetting. It really wasn't as...bad as it could have been...

[Which is technically true, in that they did not all die? But Pyrrha probably knows the sound of Murdergame Survivor Trying Very Hard.]

[To be honest, she sort of startled herself. But at least he's still on the call... and apologizing.

The sound of Trying Very Hard is palpable, and Pyrrha knows it very, very well.]

No, no. It's just... I-I...

[She clears her throat. Already knowing what she wants to say is simple, but it takes a resounding amount of concentration to get to that point.]

Before I came here, I was actually... put through something similar.

Oh - oh, no.

[There's a moment of silence on his end of the line as well.]

You - you do not know Mettaton, do you? He was with another group we saw on the computers on our way out. We - we did not know where they were, or how to find them -

"Mettaton"? [The confused tone of her voice should say enough.] No, I'm sorry but... I don't recognize that name.

My experience was in space, you see - a lot of people and I were stuck on a prison ship. And there were others trapped in other places, but we all managed to escape and meet up.

[Which is the bare minimum she could be getting into on this chat.]

We were in a hospital - but that was in a computer.

[Please don't make him explain virtual reality; he cannot.]

The previous group was as well. But whoever had set that one up ran others. We did not have a great deal of information about them, as I said...it seemed as though it may have been spread across several worlds. Could the two sets of games have been connected, somehow?

I... oh I'm very sorry about that.

[Virtual reality. Of course.]

I'm... not quite sure what to think about that, to be perfectly honest. The person in charge of our "game" was running it like a TV show, and aired it across several galaxies as one. Only the first "season" was in a virtual reality, and the last one, which I was in.

It was... a lot, but we put a stop to it, and brought down an entire company in the process. I... never assumed there would be more.

Golly. It sounds as though you were much more successful than we were.

[He knows, logically, that there was nothing much else to be done. It was hardly as though they could have searched every universe out there for the rest of the games. Still...]

The person in charge of ours had...won the previous one, but not in a way intended by the person in charge of it. They killed them, too. From what little we learned, that was the way it operated - the originators allowing victors to take revenge against their tormentors, and then using them as the new cat's paw, so that they remained distant. Anyone who might have known who they were was long gone.

...Wowser.

[She knows that, by this point in time, all of that should be resolved.

She... hopes it is.]

If you don't mind me asking... what happened to this person? Did you manage to catch them?

The one running our own trials? Oh, yes. I suppose it is not quite accurate to say it was all one person - there was a sort of amalgamate of nearly a hundred human souls, called the Risen, and they were possessing a young girl.

[He's not, uh, still kinda shaken up by that nearly a year later or anything. Nope.]

They are all doing better, now. I bear them no ill will.

Oh.

[What does she say to this. She already used "wowser".]

That's... quite the story. That many souls possessing one little girl, I can't even imagine what it must have been like. [Even still, she sounds relieved.] But I'm glad things still worked out for the best? The person running all of our "seasons" was a shapeshifter who secretly acted like both our ally and our enemy.

Golly.

[Luckily, Asgore has a completely different lexicon of "oh shit" equivalents]

That must have been difficult to learn. Why were they doing that?

Golly doesn't even describe half of it.

[There's a pause here. She ruminates over the facts in her head, for the hundredth time.]

She... wanted to prove that she could be more than what her people wanted her to be. They didn't want her to be creative, so she decided to leave them and make a show... and it wasn't meant to have people dying for real in it. But that didn't stop her. In some way, I guess she thought she couldn't stop, but that only made things worse for her when the truth finally came out in the end.

She lost some very good friends. Because her pride got the better of her.

Edited 2018-12-25 11:01 (UTC)

[And because of all the murder, presumably.]

It was for a show? What a terrible thing... [Asgore, admittedly, doesn't follow all of that. But Airlocked got kinda involved.] But you are all well now? Aside from being here, of course.

That's right. For a show that other people thought was just simple entertainment. They didn't know what it really was.

[And even if Asgore doesn't exactly get it either, Pyrrha's feeling surprisingly good about airing all of this out again.]

Oh, I'm fine now.... better than I've felt in a long time. We all are. Once the situation was shut down, we were invited to a massive party, and were able to reunite with everyone that got killed before we decided to go home.

I grew a bit... also got engaged. [hehe] Well, pre-engaged, specifically. So things really weren't all terrible...

Edited 2018-12-30 20:42 (UTC)

[Asgore chuckles warmly.]

Oh, yes, we had several couples as well. Despite everything. [Like two of those pairs killed each other, but it's fine now? He was never in deadland to observe just how that was all resolved; he just knows that it was, in the end.]

I think I feel much the same way. That it was not all terrible. Even if it was an awful thing to go through, I think many of us came out the better for it. [He pauses for a second, thoughtfully.] I have never told anyone here that. It sounded far too strange.

Happy late birthday!

Thank you! I'm still trying to wrap my head around it properly.

Life's certainly gotten... stranger since two years ago.

I'm surprised people can even keep track here. I woulda totally missed mine if it wasn't for my buddy.

Life's definitely weird here.

You'd be surprised. I've learned a few ways to keep track of time.

[Such as the stars, or just being really attentive to the passing days.]

Yes, it's... definitely different compared to other places. Not that it's totally a bad thing.

I don't have the discipline to keep track manually. But I've got Iggy to help with that.

I guess that would be assuming years here are event he same, though? I guess we'll probably figure out those kinda details in time. It's not as important as other stuff.

I was never big on camping myself, but if we could set up a peaceful place here, then I'm for it.

I've been doing my best with keeping track of the stars. It's... something I've learned to do over the past few years.

[When you're cruising around in a pirate spaceship, you find things to do.]

I don't think I've been camping in a long time... unless you could living in a cottage here as "camping".

Well, they weren't much of anything when we first got here. Come to think of it, they weren't here when we first got here...

It's no five-star resort, but we've come a really long way since then. Maybe by the end of another year we really could have something nice set up. Almost, a tropical paradise.

More would be nice, but I'll try not to complain about it. I promise.

[She's still learning how to voice her complaints instead of bottling them up until she dies.]

I once stayed in one house with over twenty people. That was pretty exciting.

Happy birthday, Pyrrha.

[ Talk about awkward. How do you say "hey sorry I forgot everything about our friendship, but hey, I remember you now"? ]

[How to do that, indeed.]

Thank you, Connie.... How are you feeling now?

[Better??? Worse??? God, what else can she say?]

...Embarrassed?

[ That much is true, but it's the least of it, really. She pauses, staring at the ground, fighting not to let the guilt and newly-remembered loss overtake her again. ]

Pyrrha, I forgot him.

I forgot all of you.

You- Oh! Oh my God!

Y-you mean, you remember now? Everything? How?

[ She sighs, looking away briefly before answering. ]

I don't know.

I just woke up...and it was all there.

At least. As far as I know it's all there.

[ But how is she supposed to know, really? It's not like she'd been aware of the gaping holes in her memory before they'd been filled in - apart from Wash and Pyrrha telling her about them, of course. What if there's more still missing, and she has no idea? ]

Holy shit?

[Pyrrha]

I-I mean, this is fantastic news- don't get me wrong! You remembering me is... it's a good weight off my shoulders.

[She was worried about befriending you all over again...!]

Is there anything at all you still need help with?

[ CT just shakes her head, even knowing that Pyrrha can't see it. Honestly, she just feels...lost, as if the foundation she'd built her life on has been suddenly shaken. She'd forgotten months of her life, had memory upon vitally important memory erased, and she hadn't even realized it. ]

I don't...know.

I don't even know where to start.

Well then, where are you?

[Pyrrha doesn't even have to care about the how, but she absolutely wants to know where.]

We can find where to start when we can sit and think it over... if that's alright?

I'm at -

[ Home, she starts to say, and the word catches in her throat. It had been home, a few days ago. She'd been happy and content. There had been nowhere else she'd rather be.

Now?

Home is Thedas.

Home is Varric.

She shakes her head, swallowing past the lump in her throat. ]

...the cottage.

Oh! Happy birthday, Pyrrha.

[ She makes a reminder to ask Nari what Pyrrha likes to eat. But more than that... it's strangely a little easier to talk to Pyrrha now. Hm. ]

Mira! Thank you very much. I'm sorry I didn't remember it sooner, but, what with everything going on...

[Ah, the first few months in this world had been so nice. And now... well, it still hurts a little to think about the things that happened just last month.]

I'm sure Nari will want to celebrate anyway though.

It's okay, Pyrrha. We've all been through... well... a lot.

[ Her voice goes quiet, soft, as she thinks about her own struggle last month. ]

If it's not an imposition... I'd love to celebrate with you.

To say the least, and it was so nice here those first months.

[She's almost wistful for that time, when she didn't know what horrors the islands could offer.

But that's all in the past. She can only keep going.]

Well, of course you can celebrate with us, Mira. I would never say no to you.

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stone of farspeech, November 19th

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I'm sorry this took so long!!

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