synflux | (OTA + CLOSED) if i cannot move heaven

[He takes the photo carefully from her hands. A moment to look at it, before he folds it, slides it back to its pocket, as practiced as anything. He has done this hundreds of times before.]

...Yes.

[It was the reason. And he had lashed out. The Library could do whatever it could do, he didn't care, but the fact that Iori managed to leave...]

[Even with seeing the other survivors during his time with the Company, it still stings. Why her? Why did she...?]

Even so, her machinations are still ongoing. I was merely a pawn in her game.

... The books we get from receiving guests are literal, physical things. You can hold them, tear them, throw them away, imbue yourself with their abilities... read their pages.

[ every guest's book was a piece of literature to hod. each story important as the last. hod had liked to read every one, to remember them that way; malkuth had liked to, too. it was something they shared. ]

I know it won't change things, and I don't expect you to see any good in knowing. Why your garden? Why not someone else's? Was that the only way? [ ... ] But would you like to hear what she's after?

Is that so? But I think thats...lonely. People as books.

[He reaches out for her hand, now - having to bend, but taking it in his own to hold.]

Isn't it better to hold something like this?

[Even if he deprives himself of it, he knows affection, other people, love...they're better than any book could be.]

[That's precisely why he denies himself of it, actually. At her questions, his expression darkens.]

I know it....has something to do with her son. How pitifully ironic. To try to bring him back...and to take the lives of children in the process. How cruel.

[ it is, and it's kind of him to reach out first, but her hand remains loose in his as she lets them join. she won't pull away, it's just... being held, rather than holding in return.

it's simple fact that they turn into books. that their entire lives, however long or well or poorly they lived, however much they did or didn't or hadn't had the chance to do or had the chance and chose not to take it, ended up being nothing more then black words etched into blank pages. turning nonsensical letters into something legible, something that had to be read half a dozen times to understand it but something that could never be fully understood and, as a result, would never disappear. because that's what books were supposed to do. once you understood them entirely, they would disappear.

that's the lonely part. malkuth's thankful they never did. ]

It read like... she was searching for the possibility where he was still alive, rather than to bring him back to the world she knew now. I think if she found it, she would have killed the "her" there and stayed.

[ a pause, weighing the confirmation of his thoughts in her next words. ]

The Purple Tear has thousands of possibilities that she jumps to, with every decision infecting and spawning another. She looks through them and decides what future she wants to see most, what can get her to her ultimate goal, and then ensures it happens somehow. [ a soft exhale. ] There must have been something she saw that only you could manage, maybe... relating to what you're doing now, that would help her find a world where her son was still alive, and acted on it. Admiration hadn't seemed to work out for her where loyalty or a spare hand might be needed, so she did the opposite.

[He notices the looseness of her hold, but doesn't pull his hand out. It's alright. He doesn't mind.]

[The possibility of him being alive. See, that's where they were similar. He understands the same pain. It's the very thing that pushes him forward for Lapis, for whatever is left of Garnet. When Malkuth continues, however, his face darkens - there must have been something she saw that only you could manage.]

[Ha.]

[Again. A pawn on a board.]

Do you know...what she said to me?

[A pause. His voice sounds as rough as sandpaper, dragging over dry skin. His fingers twitch, tense in Malkuth's hold.]

"Well, it's a shame about those children. That's one less pretense for you to wear."

[How hateful. How vile. How cruel. But was it? Was it a pretense? Was he just busy pretending to be something he never could be.]

I cannot...see eye to eye with that false serpent, though I can understand her. I refuse to.

[ how cruel. it isn't a pretense if it something you want to be; this isn't a pretense either, the way he holds her hand and is always so conscious of his strength around her. malkuth presses her lips together (thinking of ishmael, of how they can't see eye to eye on the library either) and shakes her head. it's not a pretense.

still, she can't wholly disregard the purple tear either. not when a dozen broken eggs for a single cause was, and remains, the expected consequence. should it be? no. is she selfish for ruining so many lives for the sake of herself? of course.

but malkuth can't judge her any. she doesn't have the right to. ]

Why? I'm not going to say you should, especially with what she did, what she said, but... why can't you?

[ simple curiosity, from an endlessly inquisitive woman. ]

I can't abide by people who see others as pawns. People are people. For better. For worse. They aren't....chess pieces.

[He raises his other hand, rubs at his eyes - weary, weary, so weary, carrying all his sins for years until he'll drown with them.]

I've done enough of trampling over human lives in my lifetime, for the job. The weight of what I've done stays with me. Why does it...not weigh on her like it does for me?

... Because she only wants one thing, and if she let everything else weigh her down, she'd never get anywhere.

[ malkuth understands why she can't wholly throw aside the purple tear. it was the same line of thinking that l corp ran on. it was the same train of thought that she herself lived by for so long, that she's been working tirelessly to pick at and pull apart. it's something that

....

she believes in now, to an extent, but rather than seeing them only as numbers, only as chess pieces the way a certain someone might have (by angela's words), she remembers each name, each face, for better or worse. but why doesn't it weigh on her the way it does vergilius?

unease settles low in her gut. malkuth's gaze remains on the horizon, the outskirts. ]

People aren't pawns. They're not meant to be used, trampled on, or brought down -- they're meant to live, pursue their own happiness, and be rewarded for the hard work they put in. [ that's what they always worked for, what they work for now.

the urge to draw away is fierce. her hand remains, tense and ready to spring away. ] But I'm still doing all of those things as a Patron Librarian, Vergilius, and smiling in my downtime as if I hadn't. What makes me any different than her?

[Now this is a question.]

[See, this is what brings him back to that moment. Before the first time her hand found his face, when he, in drunken stupor, had raged against the Library and its negligence in letting the Purple Tear out onto the world. Maybe she let herself out. It didn't matter, at the time.]

[Now, she asks that, and he thinks about it for a moment, before he asks a question. A sincere question. Her hand is tense, but he holds it - not strictly out of assurance now, but also to prevent her from going. He wants to see how she answers.]

[For better. For worse.]

Would you walk into my garden and tear it up unprompted, to sate your own selfish desire?

[ the librarian wishes she could give him a quick reply, but she can't. just like she can't leave, caught by his hand, the gaze she's turned from. she also wishes the quick answer was one he'd like to hear. but it isn't so simple.

the words claw at her throat; she doesn't want to lie, she doesn't want to give the truth. malkuth's eyes dip down to the sand at their feet and she wishes it'd just swallow her whole.

she wishes she was the kind of person to run; she isn't, and so she exhales softly and lifts her face to him. her lips pressed tight, parting, and then pressed again. reluctant, but willing to answer what's been asked.

for better, for worse. ]

... Change isn't something that comes without cause and consequence, [ quiet and apologetic. repetition of what she said before. ] It doesn't matter if it's selfish or not, Vergilius. You wouldn't accept it even if I killed them while explaining the end, something that would benefit the City as a whole, justified the means.

[ like they're doing now, with the library. she knows that. there's plenty of people who have sought revenge. one by one, they've fought for their lives and only one side had come out victorious.

malkuth stands here, while they don't. ]

They were yours. Don't diminish your love for them by thinking that there would've been a "good enough reason" for to happen.

[ there shouldn't be one. ]

[Of course. In the end, the Librarian is still part of the Library. It's not about morality. If the Library bade her to run over that orphanage for the sake of her dream, Carmen's dream, she wouldn't throw herself to the ground in front of it to prevent it from going, perhaps.]

[He closes his eyes, a little pained.]

Of course there's no good reason. There was no good reason for what I did all these years, on my end. Saying it was a job was a poor excuse.

[In the end, the City took him, chewed him, made him into this twisted thing.]

But you know...that's not exactly what I asked. It isn't about change, or justification. It really isn't about selfish reasons either, I suppose.

[He stops, keeps his gaze, but it feels dimmer, withdrawn, like an animal that's pulled itself back into its dark excuse of a rotten flimsy house in the corner of a grim yard.]

...I wouldn't be able to judge you, anyhow.

[He would've burned the world down, in that heated moment when he had lost it all. Thousands would die. He still holds that wretched dream in his heart.]

[He's no better, really.]

You should.

[ this, she wants to make perfectly clear. what's a little deeper gonna hurt. ]

I can refuse to do what Angela asks and be put back to sleep. It isn't a job I'm contracted to in writing, it's a deal I eventually accepted so that I could finish what we started. I remember the names, the stories, of the people I face, but that still doesn't exempt me from judgement -- I'm doing it because I want to see our hope manifest. Not because it's the only way for me to survive.

[ even if it is, from and outsider's point of view. malkuth hadn't cared about living. she cares now, but then? it was only for the plan they hard worked so hard for, had suffered tremendously in the name of. ]

That's what your job is. A reason, not an excuse. It isn't a good one, but it's still one.

...

[He lifts up his head - he starts, stops, a mildly rueful look crossing his worn face.]

Stop...taking the words from my mouth. [You should judge me.] Ah. But I will ask you, then.

[His thumb trails over the side of her hand, but he's lost in thought, trying to piece his words together.]

What do you expect to get...if I do? If I do judge you?

[ ... what does she expect?

he's not unlike other Fixers she's known, fought and fought beside. the weight of a word is nothing to the weight of an action. they may not be entirely quick to judge, they are quick to rescind trust when broken; they might have gotten lucky the first time, but the second? the third? the more chances they give someone, the more lenient they are, the more likely it is that they'll end up worse off.

even all the poetic he's spoken to her, about her, wouldn't change that. malkuth's face turns down to their hands and she shakes her head. ]

I don't know. I don't want you to hate me, but being able to accept what I've done, the people whose lives and loves that I've taken not even with the Library, but working at L Corp. itself, because it didn't happen to yours... is how we still have the cycle we work under today.

[ softer: ]

It's unacceptable. At least acknowledge that, if you won't judge me -- if you can't, because you don't view yourself any differently. Remembering them doesn't bring them back, it only keeps them alive a little longer; that's the weight I carry, I choose not to forget that, I choose to commit the lives I've taken to heart even if that means nothing to the people I hurt, even if it won't ever be enough to satisfy them.

... I won't judge the person you are, but I acknowledge that even if it's to live, what you and the other Fixers do shouldn't be normal or celebrated. It's unacceptable, and it needs to change. No one should need to die for the sake of another's goals, be it to live a better life, to fix what's broken... or to find a lost son.

[ though

the purple tear needs to accept the possibility she might never find him too, and try to live on from that point instead. malkuth isn't the kind of person who gives up either though. ]

[She speaks on. The cycle, she says. That's right. He's thought all about that cycle. The crushing weight of cogs in the system, that grinds people into flesh and bone. She's done it. He's done it. And they have to live with that, knowing that regardless of how they feel about it, it won't stop. It can't change overnight. (As much as he wants to. As much as he dreams to).]

[His mouth twists to the side as he closes his eyes, his own voice soft.]

When you read your book to me, showed me your history, let me understand the roots that have grown to make the flower you are...I already accepted that, Malkuth. What you have done is wholly, totally unacceptable. Monstrous. Of course it is. L Corp, the Library, have brought on human suffering like nothing else. You helped perpetuate that. You, yourself, also stand with blood on your hands. Fathers, mothers, parents, children, all ripped out from life from our decisions.

[This is why she's not some angel up on high, but an angel that has understood the depths the Inferno that he has walked through.]

But I choose to hold that book, even if I know its contents. Because of that. Despite of that.

[His fingers curl.]

Ah, look at us, Malkuth... [He sighs, and it rattles.] We're made of the same bones. What have we done, huh...?

[It hurts. It really does.]

[ because of that, he says. despite it. her heart aches and she

doesn't know if she exactly deserves to enjoy the affectionate warmth, relief that spreads through her now, the swelling of an emotion she's all too familiar with at this point of her life. there's a question on her tongue she doesn't know if she wants to ask. ]

What we needed to do. That's all.

[ because of that, despite it? he still wants to hold her book and write his own verses in it? it's become easier to accept, but she still tumbles the words, the sentiment over in her mind with finer and finer sand. polishing and rounding them out.

she asks a different question instead, sliding her hand more into his. really holding it. ]

What do you think about staying here? Taking a detour from your flow.

[His sorrow can't be erased. But when she holds his hand like so, he imagines that it could. That a gentle hand could soothe his battered soul, even if he knows it could never be fixed.]

[The question, however, makes something twinge in his eyes - an exposed wound he has yet to cover up.]

....There's a wrong I have to right in the City. Two wrongs. Two young lives who...were lost, changed because of me.

[A white-haired young lady. A dark-haired young man.]

[Faust had shown him that distant light, and that hope was kept him from completely being swallowed up. But that's what his goal was, and its something he's buried his teeth into, for good and for bad.]

[No. This flow cannot be stopped.]

If I could, I would. But they need me. I need to save them, Malkuth.

... I wasn't expecting anything different.

[ so there's no disappointment in her voice, since she'd have answered the same. there's things needing to be done back home. one chapter may end in the outskirts, but it'll open there too; she may be asleep for a while yet, or she may awake and barely existing so long as the library does, but she wants to see the world change around her regardless.

with her own eyes. ]

I'd like to stay. [ she'd like to. ] Even if it feels like I'm living more for Elijah than myself sometimes -- we're the same person, for the most part, so... I think that's fine.

...I wasn't expecting anything different.

[For as long as he's known her, this is exactly what he feels she would do. To pursue the highs of life to the end. To find colors wherever she could.]

[He offers her a mild ghost of a smile.]

You're...living for the you who are now. The you who was Elijah but now isn't. And it's right. You should. I want you to do so, no matter what.

... Roland said once that when I talked about her, it was like I was talking about someone else entirely. Since being here... I noticed that too. It doesn't really seem to bother anyone the way it did him.

[ not that it necessarily did, or that he was worried about her because of it, but it was an observation he made a point to

point out. malkuth's lips turn up into a smile, fondness in her tone. ]

But... Ryoji said something to me once too, when I talked to him a little bit about it. That I didn't need to feel bad about living a life I think she would've liked, that she never got to -- you and I both know there's no way the City would've ever let her, either -- because I was sort of... her legacy? Proof she existed at all.

[ which is important. because there's no doubt the city expunged them, like it does with whatever it wants. ]

So I think that goes with it. Does that make sense?

Roland, huh.

[Roland....huh. He tilts his head slightly, thinking of it. Like someone else entirely, she says.]

[The Vergilius of now isn't the same as the Vergilius of then. Or is he?]

I suppose it does. But I don't think you should treat it as like....separate existences. You have simply metamorphosed. You, the butterfly of now. Does your form eliminate the caterpillar? Not quite, no.

[ butterfly........ she feels like more of a moth. what's so different between them? one is drawn to nectar, the other a flame. ]

They always look like such different things, you'd never know one came from the other.

[ her chrysalis hadn't been pretty either, as he'll come to find out. ]

What sort of legacy would you like to leave? A story, a family... if you couldn't regrow the garden you had once, I mean.

Mm. Exactly.

[He feels he's never been a butterly. Not even close. Maybe something writhing in the dirt, instead.]

...That's a hard question. [He stares away, something a little hard in his expression.] I wouldn't leave anything of ...myself. But something for others.

[ cicada.......................

malkuth's gaze turns to him, then squeezes his hand. ]

... I think you should leave something of yourself, too. The people who remember you, you as Vergilius, not you as the Red Gaze... will slowly dwindle as time goes on. Memories are all we have to keep each other alive.

[ memories, stories, photos... everything fades with time. withers and crumbles. becomes so sacred that no one can look at them anymore. ]

It's a hard question, but you should think more about it. Even if I'm not allowed to, I'd like to leave something too.

[cicada........]

[She squeezes his hand, and he pulls it up to lightly kiss hers. To leave himself behind. Vergilius, not the Red Gaze...]

After everything...maybe it would best not to. I don't know. There was a painting of me, you know. I didn't like it. Just reminded me of everything I became.

[A pause.]

You should leave something. People need a little of your sunlight in their lives.

(OTA + CLOSED) if i cannot move heaven

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