[She let out a sigh and raked her hand through her hair. Her voice sounded very very tired all of a sudden. It was the only reason she could, off of the top of her head, think of for Max to ask why she'd want her to come over.]
Of course she did. She'd have no reason not to, after our fight... Look, this isn't about me. You're my friend, and you're hurting, and I don't want you to have to be surrounded by a high stress situation if you need a moment, an hour to relax.
I care about you, and I want to be there for you, as a friend. Anything else... [sigh.] Anything else can wait until Chloe's better. Herself, but if you need to talk about that. We can.
...Honestly, Vira-Lorr, the whole thing is so weird to me. [She gasps, backtracks.] Not in a bad way! Not at all. It's just that... I honestly don't think Chloe understood everything.
I'm not sure what she could possibly have misunderstood, Max... but yes. I think 'weird' is a fair explanation. I am sorry, though, if I caused you two any pain. It wasn't my intent.
[But she also knew that it wasn't exactly something she could 100% avoid at this point. Just like Dyshana couldn't avoid hurting Ellis by saying yes to Rex, or all of them for that matter. Only worse. Much much worse. She just... had to tread carefully.]
Ice cream sounds lovely. It's one of the only safe places in this whole town after all...
[Not to mention, neutral ground. Neither at her place with all the awkward that might entail, nor at Max's, with amnesiac Chloe playing house.]
How about I meet you there in a half hour, my treat?
[She has this painfully awkward urge to clarify that it isn't a date... which she thankfully resists. That would just be so terrible...
She arrives early. Standing there like an idiot, making it a point to stare at the ice cream stand so that she doesn't have to awkwardly watch Vira-Lorr's arrival. Her hands are wrapped around the strap of her bag, holding a little too tight.]
[She was grateful for that lack of clarity. Honestly, she would only assume it was one if the words 'wanna go out on a date' left one of their lips and that was just about the last thing she expected to hear right now. She was just grateful that Max didn't sound angry.
She arrived just after Max, and as she saw her standing there, looking nervous, she slipped up slowly behind her and sat down on one of the little tables where people ate their ice cream. She offered a small smile and waved over at her.]
Hey you... [Try to be casual, as if this was all normal.] Didn't keep you waiting did I?
[She smiled at her, patting next to her on the table while the two of them talked. They could get the ice cream in a moment. It was just good to see her. A little sigh and she glanced to the slowly returning city, gradually taking on a form more familiar to them... well, ignoring the gobs of rotting meat here and there.]
I had a feeling you might want to get away from it for a minute. It's hard to escape if you're always around it...
I... have a lot on my mind these days too. I've been thinking about all of our problems here, but I've found my mind distracted, confused. It's ok. It's just things I didn't really expect to think about.
[Because honestly? She'd expected to go for the next hundred years just doing whatever amused her at the time.]
Do you want to talk about things or just try to relax?
[Max looks away again - at pedestrians eating ice cream, at Deerington. She's obviously trying to hold back something, but it comes spilling out a moment later.]
Talk about what? How my best friend doesn't remember me at all - even if she remembers everyone else? How she died again? Again! I felt so- I felt-
[When she got that text from Reaper, of all people, so formal and straightforward in the terrible message it delivered... God, what she felt when she saw it.
Max shakes her head, at a loss for words. She doesn't want to talk about this. But the emotions always seem to be just underneath the surface. Her tone is almost pleading.]
[She reached out to put her hands on top of Max's. Honestly? She had no way of telling how that must have felt. To watch as your best friend forgot you, and only you, and seemed to remember a perverted, weird version of everyone else around you. It had to be horrifying, particularly considering that 'best friends' didn't even quite cover what those two were dealing with.
But, anything? Oh that was loaded offer right then. She swallowed, fighting down the urge to talk about certain things. Not today.]
Anything? It's odd, but when someone says something like that, it's never easy to pick something is it? [She smiled wanly.] Why ... not, me? I'm as far from that as you can get, after all. Is there anything you've been curious or confused about?
[It was awkward, painfully, but she was jut trying to get away from Chloe as a topic, even if it'd be oh so easy to fall back into it.
[For one tense moment Max thinks Vira-Lorr is asking why not her. Fortunately she manages to realize what the woman is really asking before she makes a fool of herself.
There's silent agreement to put off more difficult discussions until later on.]
...Uh. I guess... why were you fighting a war back home? And with so many strange people?
[It felt strange to be talking about it like this, but they'd never discussed it, and storytime really did afford the two of them a chance to not discuss the elephant in the room. Maybe she should... but not today.]
Right... so, the 'strange people' isn't quite so strange. There are many races in my world, twelve sentient ones to be exact. When we banded together, it was out of mutual survival, and the gravity of Leonhardt's family. They were all rather charismatic... well, some more traditionally than others. [She chuckled softly.] Duran was a troubled boy.
The war, though... It really was about survival more or less. Besides mortals there were monsters, corrupted beasts who sought to dominate all races or destroy and despoil. They were usually just maddened beasts, but when leaders of power began to guide them, and truly powerful creatures took control of those, what had been rabble to trouble villagers became an army of darkness.
We started out trying to cleanse the frontier of such things and to cleanse corruption from one empire, only to find that the darkness was even deeper than we'd feared, and spread worse with every continent until we reached the source. It was a fight for our lives that spanned a century.
[Well, she definitely wasn't expecting that sort of answer. She feels like Vira-Lorr has done her a favor by cutting it down so much - no doubt there are a great many details left out. But she gets the gist. And it's a pretty big gist.]
Wowser. Fight for all of mortal-kind, huh? [It probably deserves a little more gravity in her tone, but she's trying to keep this at least a little light.] Did you ever reach "the source"? I mean... you specifically.
[She sighed, looking off in the distance at the first question. There was a certain sadness, almost bitterness in her tone. Had they found the source of the problem? Oh did they ever. They'd found the source of all their world's problems, right to the very core.]
Oh yes... we found the mad gods who created our world and sought to unmake it because they decided it was imperfect. And then, it was put them out of our world's misery, or die along with the rest of creation. Religion's always been a curious thing for me, to have met god, looked them in the face, and spat in it before I fought for my life with them while they were still groggy enough to be killed.
[She laughed a little.]
And yet here I am, powerless as a babe sometimes... it's kind of humiliating. [Blink blink.] How old? Oh, my dear I thought you'd seen my Deerlybeloved, so I assumed you knew. I'm Three hundred and sixteen, give or take a month perhaps. World hopping's quite strange.
Max kind of just sits there staring for a moment. On the plus side, she has really truly forgotten all the things that were bothering her, at least for these few minutes.]
You've... killed...?
[She actually stands up.]
They actually made the world? Like... they made it? And you...?
[She's very much giving Vira-Lorr a Who even are you!? sort of look.]
[She smiled up at her and motioned towards the seat mildly. No need to be nervous, Max. Or so she hoped at the very least. This had definitely done a good job taking away all those other worries, hadn't it?]
Aye... long ago. Long before I was ever born. Before any of us, the world was fashioned by twelve gods, led by Lenion and Chaos. They fashioned a race each in their image, and loved their creation... but with time, they found it was not perfect.
Lenion, god of Light, wished to wait, to guide, to heal. He hoped to repair what was broken, and keep the world they'd fashioned. Chaos... felt that it must be undone, all die, that it be reborn perfect this time. Half of their breathren sided with one, half with the other. They warred, and the earth and heavens shook. In the end, the war claimed the lives of the gods of light, who sacrificed themselves to seal Chaos and his kin away. Centuries, millenia past, but the seals weakened once more...
And as they began to stir, the gods who sided with Chaos stirred from slumber. Their agent Summeril rose and with him his army of monsters. The war, all war, only ended when they awoke groggy, weak, vulnerable and we were forced to put them down... to claim creation for ourselves rather than die for their whim.
[She stood for a second and motioned towards the ice cream stand before walking right up to put in an order for some yogurt, a forestalling finger there. She called back, asking for what Max wanted before bringing them over. No answers for a second. She was very obviously thinking. When she came back and set one in front of Max, she took a bite of hers and considered more.
Why was she stalling? Well, the truth was...]
It's a video game here.
[She took a bite of her stuff and swallowed into, closing her eyes. She was pointedly stilling her emotions in all of this, because boy did she have a lot of them.]
I am told it was something of a "strategy" game combined with a "dating sim." It is a very stupid game, and it came with a very insulting mouse pad with my likeness that I hide in my home.
And killing a god is terrifying. Unbelievably terrifying. When you throw something into a black hole and it comes back ready to fight, it is positively horrifying.
[And yes, she just tossed that one out there. "When you throw a god into a black hole." this was the sort of shit you only ever saw in video games or very bad action anime.]
[Yep, an actual video game. She smiled as the girl reacted that way, reaching over to pat her on the back of the hand. Wait, wasn't Max trying to console her right there? Oh well, it worked in her mind.]
Don't worry. I know that, I do. Gwen and I talked about things like that. Our worlds touch. We dream of each other, and for one it is a fantasy, for another real.
But, [She smiled at her a little wanly, distantly.] I'm glad that I don't have to explain that to you. You do understand. It was my life.
It is positively delightful isn't it? [She giggled.] Yes, that Gwen. She seems to have a knack for understanding these kinds of things very well, honestly.
And... no, my life wasn't awful, not in the same way. It was much more complicated and meaningful. It's my little way of keeping the few who know from looking too hard.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2019-11-06 03:36 pm (UTC)...Ah, who are we kidding. She's lying.]
...Why?
[It might be kind of rude to ask why Vira-Lorr wants to hang out, but Max is wary after everything she's learned.]
no subject
Date: 2019-11-06 04:00 pm (UTC)[She let out a sigh and raked her hand through her hair. Her voice sounded very very tired all of a sudden. It was the only reason she could, off of the top of her head, think of for Max to ask why she'd want her to come over.]
Of course she did. She'd have no reason not to, after our fight... Look, this isn't about me. You're my friend, and you're hurting, and I don't want you to have to be surrounded by a high stress situation if you need a moment, an hour to relax.
I care about you, and I want to be there for you, as a friend. Anything else... [sigh.] Anything else can wait until Chloe's better. Herself, but if you need to talk about that. We can.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-08 02:23 am (UTC)[Which Max isn't going to detail further.]
...Honestly, Vira-Lorr, the whole thing is so weird to me. [She gasps, backtracks.] Not in a bad way! Not at all. It's just that... I honestly don't think Chloe understood everything.
[There's a bit of a pause.]
...Wanna get some ice cream or something?
no subject
Date: 2019-11-08 02:31 am (UTC)[But she also knew that it wasn't exactly something she could 100% avoid at this point. Just like Dyshana couldn't avoid hurting Ellis by saying yes to Rex, or all of them for that matter. Only worse. Much much worse. She just... had to tread carefully.]
Ice cream sounds lovely. It's one of the only safe places in this whole town after all...
[Not to mention, neutral ground. Neither at her place with all the awkward that might entail, nor at Max's, with amnesiac Chloe playing house.]
How about I meet you there in a half hour, my treat?
no subject
Date: 2019-11-08 03:24 am (UTC)[vira-Lorr certainly didn't cause any pain.]
Aces. I'll see you there.
[She has this painfully awkward urge to clarify that it isn't a date... which she thankfully resists. That would just be so terrible...
She arrives early. Standing there like an idiot, making it a point to stare at the ice cream stand so that she doesn't have to awkwardly watch Vira-Lorr's arrival. Her hands are wrapped around the strap of her bag, holding a little too tight.]
no subject
Date: 2019-11-08 03:41 am (UTC)She arrived just after Max, and as she saw her standing there, looking nervous, she slipped up slowly behind her and sat down on one of the little tables where people ate their ice cream. She offered a small smile and waved over at her.]
Hey you... [Try to be casual, as if this was all normal.] Didn't keep you waiting did I?
no subject
Date: 2019-11-08 03:51 am (UTC)Hey... [Obviously trying to be casual too... Though it isn't working so well.] Nah. I came early. The house is kinda... weird right now.
[She gestures around them.]
For once things are more normal outdoors than they are at home.
no subject
Date: 2019-11-08 04:17 am (UTC)[She smiled at her, patting next to her on the table while the two of them talked. They could get the ice cream in a moment. It was just good to see her. A little sigh and she glanced to the slowly returning city, gradually taking on a form more familiar to them... well, ignoring the gobs of rotting meat here and there.]
I had a feeling you might want to get away from it for a minute. It's hard to escape if you're always around it...
no subject
Date: 2019-12-01 02:46 pm (UTC)Yeah...
[She looks down at the table for a moment then back at Vira-Lorr.]
I have a billion things going through my mind and zero ability to process them. [She shrugs.] How have you been?
no subject
Date: 2019-12-03 02:28 am (UTC)[Because honestly? She'd expected to go for the next hundred years just doing whatever amused her at the time.]
Do you want to talk about things or just try to relax?
no subject
Date: 2019-12-04 02:23 pm (UTC)Talk about what? How my best friend doesn't remember me at all - even if she remembers everyone else? How she died again? Again! I felt so- I felt-
[When she got that text from Reaper, of all people, so formal and straightforward in the terrible message it delivered... God, what she felt when she saw it.
Max shakes her head, at a loss for words. She doesn't want to talk about this. But the emotions always seem to be just underneath the surface. Her tone is almost pleading.]
Talk to me about something else. Anything.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-04 04:43 pm (UTC)But, anything? Oh that was loaded offer right then. She swallowed, fighting down the urge to talk about certain things. Not today.]
Anything? It's odd, but when someone says something like that, it's never easy to pick something is it? [She smiled wanly.] Why ... not, me? I'm as far from that as you can get, after all. Is there anything you've been curious or confused about?
[It was awkward, painfully, but she was jut trying to get away from Chloe as a topic, even if it'd be oh so easy to fall back into it.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-05 03:04 am (UTC)There's silent agreement to put off more difficult discussions until later on.]
...Uh. I guess... why were you fighting a war back home? And with so many strange people?
no subject
Date: 2019-12-05 03:28 am (UTC)Right... so, the 'strange people' isn't quite so strange. There are many races in my world, twelve sentient ones to be exact. When we banded together, it was out of mutual survival, and the gravity of Leonhardt's family. They were all rather charismatic... well, some more traditionally than others. [She chuckled softly.] Duran was a troubled boy.
The war, though... It really was about survival more or less. Besides mortals there were monsters, corrupted beasts who sought to dominate all races or destroy and despoil. They were usually just maddened beasts, but when leaders of power began to guide them, and truly powerful creatures took control of those, what had been rabble to trouble villagers became an army of darkness.
We started out trying to cleanse the frontier of such things and to cleanse corruption from one empire, only to find that the darkness was even deeper than we'd feared, and spread worse with every continent until we reached the source. It was a fight for our lives that spanned a century.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-09 04:09 am (UTC)Wowser. Fight for all of mortal-kind, huh? [It probably deserves a little more gravity in her tone, but she's trying to keep this at least a little light.] Did you ever reach "the source"? I mean... you specifically.
[And... and wait a minute. Spanned a century?]
...Vira-Lorr, uh, how old are you exactly?
[Is that an awkward question??]
no subject
Date: 2019-12-09 04:29 am (UTC)Oh yes... we found the mad gods who created our world and sought to unmake it because they decided it was imperfect. And then, it was put them out of our world's misery, or die along with the rest of creation. Religion's always been a curious thing for me, to have met god, looked them in the face, and spat in it before I fought for my life with them while they were still groggy enough to be killed.
[She laughed a little.]
And yet here I am, powerless as a babe sometimes... it's kind of humiliating. [Blink blink.] How old? Oh, my dear I thought you'd seen my Deerlybeloved, so I assumed you knew. I'm Three hundred and sixteen, give or take a month perhaps. World hopping's quite strange.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-09 04:46 am (UTC)This is truly a lot to take in.
Max kind of just sits there staring for a moment. On the plus side, she has really truly forgotten all the things that were bothering her, at least for these few minutes.]
You've... killed...?
[She actually stands up.]
They actually made the world? Like... they made it? And you...?
[She's very much giving Vira-Lorr a Who even are you!? sort of look.]
no subject
Date: 2019-12-09 04:52 am (UTC)Aye... long ago. Long before I was ever born. Before any of us, the world was fashioned by twelve gods, led by Lenion and Chaos. They fashioned a race each in their image, and loved their creation... but with time, they found it was not perfect.
Lenion, god of Light, wished to wait, to guide, to heal. He hoped to repair what was broken, and keep the world they'd fashioned. Chaos... felt that it must be undone, all die, that it be reborn perfect this time. Half of their breathren sided with one, half with the other. They warred, and the earth and heavens shook. In the end, the war claimed the lives of the gods of light, who sacrificed themselves to seal Chaos and his kin away. Centuries, millenia past, but the seals weakened once more...
And as they began to stir, the gods who sided with Chaos stirred from slumber. Their agent Summeril rose and with him his army of monsters. The war, all war, only ended when they awoke groggy, weak, vulnerable and we were forced to put them down... to claim creation for ourselves rather than die for their whim.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-10 03:42 am (UTC)Wowser.
[Yeah, sums it up kind of well.]
That is... totally something out of a book. Or a video game.
[Uhhh...]
What I mean is that it's... really impressive. [She holds a fist slightly up, gesturing.] Hardcore.
[Man she sounds stupid... but she really doesn't know how to absorb all that in one go.]
...It must've been scary.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-10 04:23 am (UTC)[She stood for a second and motioned towards the ice cream stand before walking right up to put in an order for some yogurt, a forestalling finger there. She called back, asking for what Max wanted before bringing them over. No answers for a second. She was very obviously thinking. When she came back and set one in front of Max, she took a bite of hers and considered more.
Why was she stalling? Well, the truth was...]
It's a video game here.
[She took a bite of her stuff and swallowed into, closing her eyes. She was pointedly stilling her emotions in all of this, because boy did she have a lot of them.]
I am told it was something of a "strategy" game combined with a "dating sim." It is a very stupid game, and it came with a very insulting mouse pad with my likeness that I hide in my home.
And killing a god is terrifying. Unbelievably terrifying. When you throw something into a black hole and it comes back ready to fight, it is positively horrifying.
[And yes, she just tossed that one out there. "When you throw a god into a black hole." this was the sort of shit you only ever saw in video games or very bad action anime.]
no subject
Date: 2019-12-11 03:51 am (UTC)[It's an actual game? An actual video game? While she's heard of things like this before, to run into it face first like this... and so tactlessly...
Max's tone is a mix of shame and disbelief.]
I'm sorry. I didn't mean it literally.
[Max pokes idly at her own cup of ice cream, unsure of how to go on.]
It doesn't make what you experienced any less real, you know. It doesn't make it any less terrifying or valid.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-11 04:02 am (UTC)Don't worry. I know that, I do. Gwen and I talked about things like that. Our worlds touch. We dream of each other, and for one it is a fantasy, for another real.
But, [She smiled at her a little wanly, distantly.] I'm glad that I don't have to explain that to you. You do understand. It was my life.
...
The game's awful.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-11 04:40 am (UTC)[So far Max's interactions with Gwen have been on the better end, and she holds the girl in good regard.
Max grimaces at that comment.]
That doesn't mean your life was awful.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-12 03:01 am (UTC)And... no, my life wasn't awful, not in the same way. It was much more complicated and meaningful. It's my little way of keeping the few who know from looking too hard.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-15 02:24 pm (UTC)[A smile. She's certainly grateful for the distraction from the complexities of her own life.]
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