imeeji_frontstage | (no subject)

Who: Exael and the Unlucky Contestants
Where: The Game Tower
When: 86, Evening

[ Between one step and the next the walls (or streets, or open air) around you changes. The sight before you is a room inside the game tower, a new pressure at your neck. Reaching up or looking at the people around you reveals it to be a collar, titanium with a small green blinking light set in the center. ]

[ the screen flickers on, on your cellphone. It's a half-second, blink and you miss it— Exael, chewing on a nail, looking uncharacteristically nervous— then the moment's gone and she waves both hands and smiles for the camera. ]

"Ladies, gentlemen, honored guests! Units of all stripes and sizes! I come offering you a game and a few familiar words, rearranged for the occasion!"

Her carnival barker demeanor shifts for a moment as she lowers her head to say: ] "Glory to the highest, and on earth peace—" [ her head snaps up, her pigtails bouncing with it, and she's grinning again, all pomp and energy ] "even if we're not getting much down here! So let's kick up a ruckus, put on a show, and see how much good goodwill alone can manage! If you wish to save your fellows, now is the time speak!"

[ The rules appear on your phones. ]

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I--

[She wants to believe it. Oh, how badly she wants to.

[Wednesday shudders. She still can't believe he isn't pushing her away, isn't telling her to get out of her sight: she almost thinks she would, if she met her right now--]

I thought they'd be safe. I - I thought, if anyone would...! Why weren't they safe? How could - could nobody, nobody at all...

[Did we all, absolutely all of us, talk like we had?]

Did we all think they were so safe that someone else would save them?

[Eyes burning, he pulls away, hands gently gripping her shoulders at arm's length as they tremble. His bangs obscure his face, his tears decorating the floor beneath them, dropping heavy and hard. He draws a ragged, shaky breath.]

That won't....happen again. I won't allow it to happen again.

Oh, Levi--

[He's just as upset as she is.

[It's a funny kind of comfort. She pulls him closer again, one hand on the back of his head: maybe they both need this, maybe that's what makes it okay. Maybe - just maybe - she can be there for him, as well.]

I'm sorry. There was nothing you could do, either. All those things you just told me - that's got to be true about you as well. Don't you think so?

[In the end... he lets himself be pulled in like that. The pain and anguish of being so woefully ineffective are enough to choke him, and she's right-- he knows she is. Those same thoughts apply to himself. Neither one of them are to blame, but it doesn't make the hurt any easier to bear.

His hands carefully, gently, wrap around her to hold on.]

I know... [Even though his voice cracks.] It just...hurts still.

I think - maybe it's supposed to?

[She doesn't know what else to say.]

I think... it would be worse if it didn't.

[Maybe, oh maybe it would be easier--

[But it would be much, much worse.]

I know...

[It would be. Not feeling would mean they've become numb to it all, and while it might seem easier that way, that sort of thing could numb a person's feelings on morality too. He wants to use this pain. Use it, and turn it into a fire that will one day consume the ones responsible for harming the princess, Wednesday, and everyone else here. That's how he'll redirect it instead.

But for right now... just this once, it's fine to cry, isn't it? His head falls down to her shoulder to rest.]

I'm really glad that you were safe, Wednesday.

[Thank you, to whichever group protected them, where he couldn't protect her, or the princess.]

I'm glad you are, too.

[It's going to have to be enough. It's not much, but it's something.

[It's funny. It's - it's almost easier not to cry now that someone else is, someone who has far more right to. It's like she can just parcel it all up and put it aside for later. Cautiously, Wednesday strokes the back of his head (is this right? Is it too much?) and closes her own eyes: another tear, then yet another spill down her own cheeks.]

I... worried. I thought perhaps we should have--

[At least they'd been right about that.]