Endgame: This Broken Jaw of Our Lost Kingdoms; Part One

[animusmods]

Characters: open to those trapped in cells
Setting: the cells
Format: any
Summary: Those left abandoned in the Tower have some time to speak to each other. In the middle of the room, a clock counts down...
Warnings: general animus endgame warnings

Comments

[oathshackledbird]

[Diarmuid almost punches the field closing in his cell in frustration. She sounds so upset and he wants nothing more than to hug her and tell her everything will be okay. But he can't do either of those things right now. The best he can do is press his hand against the field and look toward her voice.]

Imagine I'm giving you a big hug right now. I'll give you a real one later. Just take your time and tell what you are comfortable telling. The conversation...it's what happened right before we all passed out?

[Since he does remember the angry screams in his head.]

[attheclocktower]

[She isn't able to quite picture it right now, but the overall sentiment got across well enough. Some of the tension leaks out of her. Some.]

Yeah. She... [Too big a space, too personal a topic.] she found us. After Riki was... dead. She was mad at us.

She kept insisting that she'd saved us, and we were being ungrateful. And we kept telling her no.

[Obviously they'd said a lot more than that, and her grim tone of voice hints as much.]

Then she did this. She said she'd 'show us all'.

[oathshackledbird]

[Diarmuid relaxes a little when it seems like his words have comforted her some. It's not enough, but it will have to do for now.]

'Show us all.' I remember hearing that right before passing out. What exactly is she showing us? Is she just punishing us or is it more...

[He falls silent for a moment, eyes drifting around the area until they fall on the clock counting down. Being trapped. Watching time tick away and not being able to do anything...]

It's a nightmare.

[The words slip out before he really realizes he's saying them.]

She's showing us a nightmare...

[Is it her way of saying things could always be worse? Or is there more to it than that?]

[attheclocktower]

[Xion looks over in his direction, a puzzled frown on her face]

What makes you say that?

[While she doesn't like this at all, this isn't exactly what she would have pinned as a 'nightmare.' And in the context of what they'd been arguing about when she'd lost her temper... how did this actually prove she was saving them?]

[oathshackledbird]

[Diarmuid points to the countdown clock.]

After how hard we have fought to save ourselves and our worlds, what else could locking us up and making us helpless to do anything as the last of our time ticks away be? It means we failed. All of our work and all of our suffering was for nothing because now all we can do is sit here until time ends.

How many times have people said that anyplace would be better than being locked here in the Tower? She is showing us there are worse fates and now...now we might really be totally dependent on her being kind enough to 'save' us once more. No matter it was her who put us here to begin with.

[Yet another game. Diarmuid truly hopes that Zo and Aria are still free and able to help end this game before it goes much farther...]

[attheclocktower]

[And you had been doing so well at handling an upset Xion, Diarmuid. Xion's face hardens and her hands clench into fists. Putting most of her weight on her good leg, she tries to push herself up to her feet, to stand tall.]

We have not failed. And don't call it saving us. That's why we're down here, is because she refused to understand that pulling us here from something she started was not saving us.

We haven't failed.

[It's a desperate, furious thing. Because the truth of the matter is that hope and determination are all she has right now and his words, however inadvertently, were threatening to take those from her.]

[oathshackledbird]

[Diarmuid pauses and just blinks for a moment, startled by the sudden change in her attitude. What did he say to anger her so? Then it hits him...

He holds out his hands in a calming gesture.]

Easy, Xion. That is what I think she wants us to think and feel. It's not what I think at all. I am not giving up. I refuse to let this...

[His hands gesture out to the area around them.]

...be our end. It is NOT acceptable. Not after all we have been through. Ruana will not win this. We will find a way.