Open + Closed prompts/ Catch all

[iustaegis]

♥ Who: Pyra and various.
♥ Where: Around Town
♥ When: Around Jan
♥ What: One General OPEN Prompt + Catch-all!
♥ Rating: E for everyone, will update if necessary

Hand-holding
[ Have a woman with short, red hair wave and then approach you, whether or not she knows you. Her presence is warm, and her smile is even warmer. She offers a hand. Easy enough, right? This is the simplest method to generate some of this contact-energy and get money out of it, too.  ] 

Would you like to go for a walk?

Catch-All
[ This is a catch-all for January! Top Levels to follow below. If you'd like a thread for this month, HMU with a wildcard below (Pyra can be found just about anywhere around town), PM me or PP me at drinksteapots! ] 

Comments

[original_is_best]

Gather information and determine the dangers on the outside and the motives of those on the inside. If the natives are a threat, neutralize it. If they aren't, the city can be remade, with even the potential of assisting the citizenry with undoing their mistake. After all, it's a matter of creating biological bodies and re-discovering their means of transfer to reverse the process.

Neutralize the threat outside to ascertain the safety of the city. Given that the gods are showing questionable leadership, if I am able to reconnect this world with my own, His Radiance would make an excellent leader. He is known for being just and compassionate.

[He lifts both hands in almost a shrug.]

What happens will ultimately depend on their actions. I seek not to harm the innocent, but to protect if need be.

[iustaegis]

[ At that, her expression softens as she regards him.

She smiles. ] To protect others.... Including those of Lucis?

[ Given that she knows Noctis isn't too keen on him-- and that Pyra doesn't know the details beyond that they are at war-- this is a surprisingly refreshing take on him. ]

[original_is_best]

[He hadn't really thought of it that way. He had been thinking of it as a whole, so he took a moment to mull that over.]

...I suppose so. For the time being. We can't properly conclude our war here. Rather, we are all faced with a new challenge.

[iustaegis]

[ This is what she likes to see, someone who is able to put aside wars for the bigger picture. Even if only temporarily... ]

How goes the war back in your world...?

[original_is_best]

[He lit up in response.]

Quite well. I was making massive progress in my research, and it's only a matter of time before I find a way to break through their wall.

[But then he calmed himself again. Since coming here much has happened, and he was learning a lot about what the future held.

And it wasn't good for the Empire.]

I suppose I will have to suspend those plans, though.

[iustaegis]

[ Sounds troubling. ]

Suspend those plans... because you are here? Or because of some other reason?

[original_is_best]

I need to reassess the path we're taking if I want to change the future of the Empire.

From what I have heard of the future... It is not acceptable.

[iustaegis]

[ She frowns, her expression cautious. Someone told him of the future. ]

May I ask-- how is it unacceptable?

[original_is_best]

The Empire rises, for a time. However, the entirety of the world becomes infected with the plague and trapped in darkness. The Empire itself seems to be... nearly non-existent.

[A thought which pained him. It was hard to believe they could lose everything so quickly.]

[iustaegis]

[ An Empire. A great many people, too. ]

From what I know of your world... and what I have heard, there is a greater power at work.

[original_is_best]

Then we must become even greater.

['Quit' was in this man's dictionary but he skipped that part.]

What have you heard?

[iustaegis]

Something about a prophecy...

[ She brings a free hand to her chin. ] But I am not of your world, so I could not tell you further than that.

[original_is_best]

Ah, the prophecy of the Chosen One who would bring dawn back to the world. I once thought much of that to be a method for the Lucis Caelum family to maintain rule.

I don't intend to bow to any prophecies, however.

[iustaegis]

[ A way to maintain their rule... Huh. ]

How would you save your world from the darkness, then? [ A pause. If he's heard of a future where his empire has fallen and the world is encased in an endless night, he must be wary of it. ] The scourge?

[original_is_best]

The Starscourge caused the darkness, so it would have to be...

[All this time he'd been trying to learn how to use it, so he stopped. It meant giving up his previous work. He was averse to that, but it seemed like it might be necessary.]

...eliminated.

[iustaegis]

[ As far as she knows, this prophecy has been in the making for thousands of years. If it took six gods needing to make something like that to banish this Scourge, for a mortal with limited resources, (or even in his own world, where she suspects most of those resources are dedicated to war)... ]

Elimination won't be easy.

[ She suspects he knows this. Turning from his side, Pyra faces him. ] But do you think you can accomplish it?

[original_is_best]

With the proper knowledge anything can be accomplished. It will be no small task, but if I focus my efforts...

[Again he found some difficulty. Putting aside his ambitions to find a way to control that power for himself was a huge change. It was like giving up a project midway, never being able to know the end results and instead destroying it all.]

[iustaegis]

[ Focus his efforts, he says. Is there even a choice between this and whatever else might distract him, if he wishes to stop his empire from coming to ruin because of a plague?

He’ll have to make a choice... and those are never easy, either. And then— there is that. “I”, as if he has only worked alone.

Pyra softens her voice, her touch gentler upon his shoulder. ]

You seem troubled.

[original_is_best]

[So she had noticed, though he was never one who was generally good at hiding emotions. They showed pretty clearly on his face. He just didn't get sad or angry the same way most people did, so people mistakenly thought he was unemotional.

He sucked in a breath and righted himself.]

It requires a great amount of change.

[And change was difficult.]

[iustaegis]

[ Verstael had mentioned there was another who had helped him with welding. That is someone here for him, and unlike whoever that person is, Pyra has only recently gotten to know this man. Yet even she can tell that--

He loves his empire. This seems fairly obvious, of how he spoke of his Radiance, his nation; how he yet wears his imperial garb, how even his ambitions in this world could potential instill his emperor as leader. It is a very profound, loyal adoration the likes of which she's never seen before, and one that pushes him to forward-- just look at what he's managed to accomplish so far: these experiments, this research, this laboratory... They tell of a driven man.

But how driven. How far does that loyalty go. She decides to press. ]

Would you be willing to embrace change, if you could save that which you love? 

[original_is_best]

It may be necessary to do so.

[And with the heavy sigh that followed his resistance to the idea became clear. So much research to be lost. It was difficult to let go even though it was the correct path to take.

It was like a speeding train fixed on one path suddenly needing to be diverted to another. The sharp turn ahead was difficult and distressing.]

It may be that some of my research will go... awry.

[A hesitant admission of being wrong.

He wasn't often wrong.]

[iustaegis]

[ While she has only known this man for a few months, she knows that he's passionate about his work. One doesn't get to building a laboratory like this out of almost-nothing in a completely different world with only meager motivation, after all. ]

How do you mean?

[ Research can go wrong, as far as she understands, as no one is perfect. Errors in tools, human errors, errors in analysis, conclusions... the list goes on. But the way he says things makes her wonder if he's speaking of something unprecedented. ]

[original_is_best]

It would seem that the plague spreads at an alarming rate in the future.

[He distanced himself from it. It was a thing that happened. Not something he did.

But he was concerned about himself. His actions. How far things might have ended up going. He didn't want to believe it.]

[iustaegis]

[ He did mention that in the future, his world becomes infected with the plague and enshrouded in darkness....

Cautiously-- ]

You... [ --Cautiously and slowly: ] can't be suggesting that your research triggers that darkness. Or accelerates it overtaking...?

[ Is one man capable of such a thing? No, no, there was this Ardyn, too. ]

[original_is_best]

[There was a clear reluctance on his part to answer.]

It may be.