( open ) may catchall

[memors]

WHO: ryoji + you!
WHAT: post-surgery wuh-ohs, ducks, and some gardening
WHERE: around base
WHEN: first couple weeks of may
WARNINGS: cw for discussion of surgery, needles, etc.


a. post-op glitches

[ So, as it turns out, the only thing worse than signing up for two enhancement procedures at once is dealing with the aftermath when your brain is fried.

No matter how approachable and grounded Ryoji is, even he can't escape from his hubris, and having never experienced significant pain in his human form, he didn’t…think it would be all that bad. Uncomfortable, maybe, inconvenient, yes…but he completely did not anticipate the way that the pain fully overrides any other cognitive thought in his brain. It hurts, to move, to think, to simply be conscious, and he has only stumbled out of the medbay for a few moments after being released that the impact of the double surgeries fully overloads him at once.

For a few long, untenable moments, it’s like he blacks out completely – and when he comes to again, staring at the hands that caught up, it’s like he doesn’t recognize them. Are they his own?

A simple question carrying a lot of weight, when he can’t remember anything about who he is or what he’s doing here. All he really seems to recall is that he was going somewhere, and given he just received a nice teleportation upgrade, well.

In attempting to find his destination by testing out this new power he can’t even remember how he got in the first place, he may just wind up in your room, looking half-dead (ha) and delirious. While he's usually in his human form, he may appear as a Shadow instead, without consciously making the effort to change. Whether you’re awake or asleep or even just heading back to your room yourself, he hardly seems to register another’s presence, instead muttering to himself: ]

No, this isn’t right…

[ He needs to go to…the top level of Tartarus, right? So why can't he remember how to get there? ]

b. duck tales

[ Well! Those were events that sure transpired, and while Ryoji is still feeling out some of his new abilities, he’s at least recovered enough from the surgeries that he’s back in his right mind and up and about again. Whether or not he should be, strictly speaking, remains to be seen! But whatever, it’s fine. Violet needs walkies.

Around the base, Ryoji can be encountered walking…a duck. A beautiful, newly acquired mandarin duck, wearing a jaunty little bow around her neck. Since Outsiders aren’t, you know, supposed to keep pets, strictly speaking, Ryoji has taken great care to plan routes for them that will hopefully avoid crossing paths with LILITH officers. However, Violet is as inquisitive and independent as her owner, and also a duck, so when she catches sight of your shoelaces or anything shiny you may have dropped on the ground, she waddles right over to pick at it with her beak, chirping with enthusiasm.

…Or that’s how it sounds to Ryoji, anyway. ]

Ah, hello there. I’d love to chat, but we have a schedule to keep…oh, but if you’d like to join us, you’d be more than welcome!

[ Who wouldn’t want to walk a duck?? And Ryoji is there, too, I guess. ]

c. flower gardening

[ At various points during the month, Ryoji can be found in the greenhouse, tending to some flowers. It’s a curious hobby that he’s picked up, one he didn’t expect to find himself so captivated by, and one that’s perhaps a bit ironic for him, all things considered – yet even given his proclivities, there’s something so captivating about the way life can bloom from a seed, with just a little sunlight and water, a little currency of time...

...and whatever mutant fertilizer they use in here, but that’s not important.

Whether you’re enjoying the plantlife independently or have approached to peek at the flowers that he tends to, Ryoji swiftly plucks one of the blossoms, sweeping down into a bow, and offers the flower to you with an outstretched hand. ]

Please, take this. You deserve it, as the only thing here that eclipses its beauty.

[ He’s feeling back to his usual self, it seems. ]

Comments

[ignoreher]

[ so something that's messed with his head, his memories. it seems more long term than short... but it is familiar, and she smiles as she nods. ]

That's right. Malkuth, your friend you won't forget. The real me. [ a meaningful thing, to her. from the civilian name she shares with her memories. ] Since you remember that, let's go through everything one at a time -- take a seat, and tell me about Tartarus first off.

[memors]

[ Though the urgency to get to Tartarus lingers in the back of his mind, since he struggles to remember exactly why, it wouldn't hurt to stop and answer her questions. Maybe they can find the answer together, and that...seems more important than getting there, for now.

So he does take a seat, hulking though he is at present, at the edge of her bed, careful not to startle Mauve or displace anything else in the room. ]

...Alright. I'll...try to remember what I can. [ The sound of a slow exhale. ] Tartarus...is my home. The birthplace of all Shadows. It's where Nyx is waiting for me. For the Fall.

[ How helpfully cryptic. ]

[ignoreher]

For the end you're supposed to bring about.

[ she remembers this. the casual things he's brushed off in one-off comments are always heavier than they appear; malkuth is the same way, so she knows. if his arrival was the first trumpet, then this form... his desire to go to tartarus, to meet nyx... is one of the later ones, when humanity is at its fraying ends.

the manual comes to mind and she recalls the fifth, sixth, and seventh descriptions. things that would only ever be read and never put to practice long enough to matter. ]

Well, I know why you can't find Tartarus then! There's no Dark Hour here, so... there's no signal for you to follow home. You're just doing your best and ending up everywhere but. Which... I'm pretty thankful for, actually. I don't want to lose you.

[ after a moment she'll lower her hands to encourage mauve to come out more. once the duck does, she holds him in her lap. he seems less timid now, trilling slightly as he peers at ryoji's form. see? all good... ]

[memors]

[ But of course. That makes so much sense now. How could he return to Tartarus without the Dark Hour? No wonder he couldn't find his way back. It should make him feel a little forlorn, shouldn't it? To be unable to return to what is his home.

But "home" is a funny word, one that has never really had a definition for him. If home is where the heart is, then...

A tilt of his masked head at the duck in Malkuth's lap as the two of them exchange looks. He isn't afraid? Neither of them seem to be afraid. I don't want to lose you. ]

I don't want to lose you either. [ He answers without really thinking about his words. ] But things, people...come and go all the time. That they end is only natural, isn't it?

[ignoreher]

[ thoughtless, but they make her smile. she pets mauve with a softer laugh. ]

That doesn't mean I want them to. Even if it's natural, it's human to cling to what and who you care about -- and I care about you, Ryoji. [ they're friends. he's important to her. ] My life would be infinitely less bright if I didn't have you in it.

[ even if it's natural. even if they'll part one day -- never knowing when their goodbye will be their last. it makes her sad to think about. lonely. ]

So I know at some point it'll end. You'll go, or I'll go... naturally. Why hurry it?

[memors]

[ What an odd thing to say to the manifestation of death itself. How could someone like him bring brightness into someone's life? If that spark is there...it doesn't belong to him. It's another's, something he just inherited from his time in their soul. ]

I see. So you choose to savor the moment while you have it, despite never knowing when the end might come. That's easier said than done, though, isn't it?

[ Yet somehow...he completely believes her capable of it. ]

You...seem to understand well. What it means to be human.

[ignoreher]

I don't think so. No more than anyone else does.

[ for all the lives she's lived, the lives she's... taken, too, the journey to understand humanity is one that is unending to her eyes. she pets mauve gently. ]

I know what it means to be me. But I don't know what it means to be you or anyone else -- every person has their story, and that's what makes them them.

... There's actually someone you remind me of, just a bit -- Angela. She was someone who was seeking to understand the various facets of humanity through the lives of others. Their stories, their experiences. And through it, she learned what it was to be human, and why she was created to be human-like.

[ there's a sort... kindness in her tone -- not so much a fondness as it is simply a kindness, an understanding. truthfully, malkuth can't stand angela, and the feeling is mutual; truthfully, they see much of themselves in the other, and only in the worst ways. ]

So it's kind of like that. My own want to savor moments, difficult as it is... Taking for granted the people I have right now without meaning to... That's just me. Angela's humanity is different for her, and your humanity is different for you. It's a lifelong pursuit.

[memors]

[ Is that...the kind of person he is? Is that even right, to think of himself as a person at all? There's something familiar and comforting in it, even if it feels at odds with his very nature. He is not human, he wasn't created to be human-like, as the person Malkuth tells him about was, but instead...he has always existed, in some form, and when manifested as this, it was not to pursue any meaning beyond his one purpose. It was entirely happenstance that he has anything to call a shred of humanity at all.

He's forgotten many of his memories, but has he also...forgotten what it means to be Death? ]

She sounds like Aigis. [ Oh. Another memory bubbles up, and he clings to it. ] She, too, was created in the form of a human, even though that wasn't her purpose. She still wanted to know what humanity meant for her, too...

[ He wishes he could ask her, now. ]

If everyone's humanity is different, then...how can we ever know if we're human enough ourselves?

[ Is that something they can know? ]

[ignoreher]

[ aigis... she'd like to meet her someday, she'd like her and angela to meet someday. there's a lot to learn from someone like that, she thinks -- and a lot she can share herself too. malkuth keeps the name close to her thoughts. ]

Now there's a question if there ever was one! I think most people just assume that since they're human, they're human enough; it isn't a question that they think a lot on. Angela based it on how human she became -- more flesh than metal, beginning to forget things she'd remembered for ages, the ability to feel warmth over knowing temperature differences through sensory nodes in her hands... stuff like that. More, um... Concrete observations! Nothing abstract.

But I think it simply comes down to want. Death doesn't have any desires of its own, it only has a job to do that it does well; a machine is the same way, a purpose for which it was built that it does, hopefully well. Humans do what they'd like because the mood strikes them -- because they have the freedom, or want to have that freedom. Because they want to be more than their job or role.

[ hard lessons a former robot had to learn herself, though she keeps quiet on it. there's too much surrounding that. too much she doesn't want to say, too heavy to explain. ]

So lemme ask you this, Ryoji. Without thinking too hard, about who and what you are, what do you want right now? It doesn't need to be anything big -- small desires are just as important.

[memors]

[ So swiftly does Malkuth illustrate a parallel between himself and Aigis that Ryoji has never rightly been able to discern the full picture of on his own. That's just it, though, isn't it? Both he and Aigis were created for a specific purpose. To achieve a certain end. It's why the two of them, specifically, had clashed on the Moonlight Bridge, and sparked the very circumstances that allowed Ryoji to gain a sense of self. It...had done the same for her, too. For obvious and direct reasons, he's always seen Minato as his reflection, but Aigis is, too. Another angle, another lens through which he can view himself.

...There's a lingering ache in his heart, another memory bubbling up to the surface. He never got to see Aigis address her own personhood, will never get to see the journey she took to get there.

What do I want? ]

I...

[ He's thinking about it too hard, isn't he? ]

I want to listen to music, and to the sound of my heart beating.

[ignoreher]

[ malkuth waits, fingers gently caressing the feathers of the duck in her lap as mauve dozes off in the calmness she exudes despite the otherwise "terrifying" creature sat before them, and giggles in near-relief at the simplicity of them. small desires count, and those are as small as it gets. the only other would be to feel the warmth of the sun. ]

Too bad music is most digital these days, I feel like it's different hearing it through your ears than it is in your head... maybe we can still find some "retro" places that sell what we need though. For the heartbeat...

[ hmm. for the heartbeat... that's tougher. she tilts her head in thought. ]

It's easier to feel it than to hear it, so would that work for now? I don't want to compromise on your desires, Ryoji, but I'd need to ask the medical staff for a stethoscope, and I don't know if they lend them out.

[memors]

[ A warm laugh, even though it sounds distant in his distorted voice. ]

Haha, feeling it might work. It's only...when I'm like this, I possess no heart at all. Shadows are not organic beings. I don't need to sleep, or eat, or breathe when I'm like this. However...I find I miss those things, about my human form.

So...I just need to figure out how to change back.

[ Easier said than done, when his own abilities feel hazy right now. ]

[ignoreher]

[ the laugh grows a small smile on her face, distant as it seems, and carefully sets the dozing duck into her seat as she stands, turning back around to face ryoji and study him. tilting completely one way, then the other. stepping from one side, and then back.

a conundrum indeed. ]

You sort of just did it last time. [ easier said than done indeed. if only it were as simple as breaking the curse with a kiss. ] Um... Hmm. Maybe experiencing something shocking might do it...?

[ ... the procedure for a possession-type breach, which is what's most similar to ryoji's current form, was only ever to kill the employee affected. even now, distortions happen and they simply cannot be undone -- not to her knowledge, in any case. a one way affair.

but ryoji isn't like that. it's simply the closest knowledge she has to it, and it only proves that she can't rely on the things she did before; not that she'd want to, if it meant hurting someone so dear to her. ]

Shocking in a harmless way, I mean. Or... something humanizing...? Maybe you just need to look at some pictures of yourself...