2018-11-20: The Shell of a Person
- Log: The Shell of a Person
- Cast: Riesenlied, Siegfried, Mother
- Where: The Photosphere
- Date: 20th November 2018
- Summary: Siegfried receives untimely news and an unexpected visitor...
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Things...
Things have a way of happening far, far, far quicker than one would like, sometimes.
It seemed to have happened in the blink of an eye. Riesenlied's kidnapping at Alhazred's hands. Her spiriting away back to the Photosphere. In what seemed like a scant few vital hours--
A few hours that could've made all the difference...
A scout hurriedly makes their way towards Lord Siegfried. They have an uncertain look about them. "Lord Siegfried, sir... I have news to report."
Riesenlied was back at the Photosphere.
A buzz of uncertainy and suspicion had already broken through the ranks. Why was the traitor back? Why was no one doing anything about it? But, some uninformed foot soldiers say, something had been done so that she 'wouldn't be a problem' anymore... though the details are vague, the kind of whispers that become muddied through the continued milling of the rumourmill as it cascades up through the floors.
It is a thing that should have been an impossibility.
So just what, exactly, was happening?
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.
"News?"
Siegfried looks up from the command center of the Photosphere. The news has been grim, and the map projected on a hologram is no less grim: it shows little red dots, places where Drifters have been spotted on Elru. The map of the northern part of the continent is fantastically detailed; it is something Filgaians could, by and large, only dream of.
He looks at the scout, and his head tilts. He heard only that some party had returned, with Alhazred; he hadn't heard the news. Rumors spread...
...But this one would, if said improperly, draw Siegfried's wrath.
Still, he feels that prickle of nervous uncertainty. That tension, which comes when he knows bad news awaits... and yet does not know what. "...Speak."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
The scout flinches for a moment, quietly lowering their head. The tension in the air is palpable, and it felt as if Dark Spear Glumzambor was waiting and at the ready. "... Milord Alhazred has returned from field testing. The Metal Abomination 'Ialdabaoth' was destroyed by the Drifters, within expectations, however..."
The scout swallows. They didn't report this in time, and it would be on their heads--
--at least, until the door slides open.
What comes through...
... is...
It is Riesenlied, unmistakably. The centuries-long bond between Riesenlied and Siegfried is too deep, the familiarity too much, to suggest otherwise.
But everything else seems wrong, in the way she softly... floats, her warped, Draconic feet a mere inch from the ground. The black robe-like garments with capelet that seem very much like hers, but a mockery in colour.
The Original Artificial Medium that appears fused to the base of her neck where her necklet would be, visibly grafted in a faint yet definitively twisted manner.
And...
A small crown over her eyes, in a design and visage that is impossible to not remind one faintly of the self-same crown Quarter Knight Alhazred wears. A flowing veil extends outwards from that crown, partially covering it like a hood.
"... I am here, Lord Siegfried," speaks the... this...
This... doll-like person which so speaks in Riesenlied's voice, yet carries with it an intonation so bereft of the emotion that Riesenlied carries.
"I am here... to serve you."
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.
"I am not... shocked by this news," Siegfried says, to the news of Ialdabaoth's demise. He almost says it flatly. His opinion of Alhazred has been, at best, that he is /their/ monster. Seeing Mother's change, though, has made his tolerance grow shorter. It is part of a crisis of faith that he has not quite admitted is occurring.
"What--"
He starts to ask 'what else.' The door opens, sliding open to show a Riesenlied that is familiar as ever -- and yet utterly changed. She is not wearing the dress he was used to; she floats off the ground. There is, frighteningly, a Medium that has been grafted to her very being. Siegfried's back grows ramrod straight. His eyes widen.
His expression is severe and stern as ever, but there is something hidden away there: a cold, growing terror. "Riesenlied... but... you were--" He swallows. "...You left this place. Why have you returned? What has brought you here?"
He finds his fingers shaking. He clutches the railing at the top of the command center's stairway, to still them.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
The scout decides that it's best to /go/ while the going is good. It's pragmatically fortune for their end that this 'Riesenlied' has decided to just seek out the command centre directly.
If there is terror in her eyes...
... they are absent, for her eyes cannot be seen. In every way, the most expressive part of her has been taken from her.
"I left... this place? I do not understand, Lord Siegfried."
The memories, so jumbled, rather evidently. A presence that does not bear the full sordid history of everything that has happened in the last year and a half...
... and possibly, more direly, before then.
"I am here... because I am to be your loyal and serving one."
She still speaks so slow and deliberately. Not much has changed in that manner. Yet, the way she intones it...
The way she bobs her head in that way of hers when she's confused. As if there was some manner of empathy in the way she detects terror and concern in him... yet... cannot quite reach out to express it. She asks sotto voce, as if a cold computer asking for confirmation:
"Is that... not the case, Lord Siegfried?"
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.
"This--"
Siegfried feels terror give way to anger, the same way one might feel a wave crash on the beach. That anger, he discovers, has no place to go. It has nothing to lash out again, because the source of his rage is at his own allies. He feels the same crushing pain that he felt the day he realized who Lacan had been -- and, in the moment of Sophia's death, who he had become.
His fingers lift, slowly, to cover his mouth. Then, he bows his head. In the span of a few seconds, he seems to age years; his head hangs, seemingly in thought.
"...No, you have always cared for and served me well, Riesenlied," he says, his voice thick with something. Those fingers continue to shake, until he balls them into a fist. "You... perhaps it was an injury. Tell me," he says.
It sounds, like always, like a command. "What is the last thing you remember?"
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
The woman behind the mask pauses for a moment.
It feels as if there is no response at all from this doll-like person; yet the way she quietly considers... as if there was some great conflict that doesn't quite mesh, yet doesn't quite find a solution outwards.
She sets down on the ground, no longer floating.
"I was... in a great torpor, was I... not? A great battle that wounded me."
The hitch at the last word, 'not'. As if one can never be too certain. Like it were an oft-repeated story, that should be natural as if first-hand memory, and yet not. And also, the same excuse Lady Harken has given. Personally and at large to the Photosphere. She was in a long torpor from injuries... perhaps from the Metal Demon Wars. Perhaps from the Day of Collapse.
As if dwelling on that memory too long is stressful, she suggests, "But now... I am recovered. I am to be a loyal servant to you once more, Lord Siegfried."
'I am to be'. The imperative that is repeated again and again, as part of her speech.
"In what manner... may I serve you?"
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.
He tries, and fails, to meet her eyes from behind that mask. Increasingly, she seems nothing like the Riesenlied that he knew. Even when she was reticent or hesitant, as a child, she never showed this lack of life. His fingers remain clenched into a fist, fury radiating off him and then finding no target for it.
"A servant," he repeats, his tone flat -- but flat in a way wholly different than his addressing of the scout earlier. "I... see. Do you recall who helped you awake?"
If it was Alhazred, then Siegfried would end him. This violation went against all he stood for; it went against all that Mother stood for. Even now, he feels that wrath finding a focus. He looks up at her. "...You need only be yourself," he concludes. "I have faith in you, Riesenlied."
He feels sick, even saying the words.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Life.
Perhaps that which has most been taken. The exacting, almost purpose-built motions that animate her so... which lack a bearing of life, bereft of the curiosity and desire to seek. Whether it was peace, or a new world, where all may flourish...
"The memories are... hazy. There was someone. A..."
A longer pause. It's those pauses that seem most telling. Like lag in a machine, a processor desperately trying to process a solution.
"A dark room. The sound of machinery. A cloth...?"
Her head slumps just a little, the veil bristling for a moment further. Yet that mask bears a distinct semblance. The modus operandi in which this has come about. The excuses...
"I was told... I possess an ability. To control the lifeblood of this planet, the Leyline."
She bobbles her head in an almost endearingly familiar way, as she speaks about what she can do, rather than what she remembers. It's almost excruciating, the faint and nigh-subconscious way in which she behaves daughter-like. As if nothing can quash the love that she feels.
"I was told Mother was still weak and in need of more energy. That there was that which stemmed the flow to her... from the statues unbroken."
A soft, innocent smile forms on her lips.
"If I can remove these stems, Mother can awaken fully... then, in that sense, I can be useful to you, Lord Siegfried. That is what I am told."
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.
A dark room. A cloth.
Siegfried feels the answer coming to his mind. Alhazred worked in dark rooms -- the monster was not the sort to show his hideous body or soul to the light. Alhazred donned a white cloth. It was not enough to go on; and yet, Siegfried wonders if he truly cares about having the just cause to do this. His eyes narrow, and he glances down for a moment.
Before he can look away, though, he catches the slight bobble of her head. It reminds him of a thousand times before; a thousand times that he never knew were so precious.
"The Leyline--" He hesitates. He knows that to be true; he knows that Mother needs such power, to return to her full strength. Once, he never would have asked if that was a good thing.
"Yes," he says. "You speak the truth. Is..." He looks down at where the Medium is fused to her. "...Is this Medium part of how you intend to do that?"
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Perhaps the evidence would still be there if he were to care about having the just cause to do it. Or perhaps he would do it sans the evidence, just because. Whatever the case may be...
The Medium seems to shimmer at the right angle, as if it were ensconced with a faint thrum of the very Ley Riesenlied is describing.
The Medium, a conduit to the Guardians, which has so been described as anathema and unworking for the Metal Demons. A signifier of the irreconcilable difference between the two races -- in physiology, in culture, in nature...
Yet here, with this one... a formerly impossible route -- diverting the very power without having to break the statues -- seems open to them. And that possibility is very much an interest in someone devoted to science... is it not?
Yet is it a good thing? What a difference a year can make in which Siegfried would have asked whether it was good or not.
"... Yes," Riesenlied acquiesces. "I have been granted access to a form that can sustain such tremendous energy... at least for a little while."
There is a little hesitation in her voice, as if she's not certain. It will be a tremendous task, perhaps with no small amount of pain... and perhaps -- also alluding to the experimental and potentially disastrous nature of this plan.
"Then I shall divert it towards Mother. And when she awakens... ah..."
A hesitant pause. What she speaks next is the most anxious she's sounded, as she brushes on a set of words she speaks so often... yet feels as if she's plagiarising someone else:
"We shall... have the new world we seek... shall we not, Lord Siegfried?"
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.
It is not lost on Siegfried that, in this time, his worldview has been shattered. He starts to look calmer, but that is a lie. His fear, grief, and anger find an acceptable outlet. He will stride from here, take Glumzambor, and then leave Alhazred's pathetic remains to be Yarobeleedt's new bedding.
His lips quirk into a smile, savage in its form, at the imagined violence. Siegfried is still a Metal Demon.
But that smile fades, as she says the words 'a little while.' He begins to realize, then: this form will not be sustainable. She hasn't been granted even a chance to resume her service.
She has been made into little more than a weapon and a battery.
The smile fades, slowly, as he realizes -- as she speaks, as the anxiety slips through her mask. Siegfried feels something thick and knotted in his neck; something he hasn't felt since he lost Enkidu, and yet, a different sort of pain entirely. The imagined bloodshed lingers...
But he finds no joy in it, now.
"Y...yes," he manages. "This world... will never be the same as it once was, I fear, Riesenlied."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
There's something that continues to stir, ever so deep within...
The way she laces her hands together. Never into a firm, taut ball. Genteely, as it were... perhaps some ascribed motion programmed into her. An idle animation, servile as she is.
She does not comment into the way Siegfried's anger seems to transform, within that helmet of his. The way his lips quirk to a violent smile.
Yet perhaps it's not lost on her, the way her form seems to shrink just a little. The way she seems... a little sad, for him.
She is a weapon. And a battery. She has her purpose. And when that purpose has reached its completion... Like an executable, her task will be over.
And she speaks to it with such joy, as if bringing that one process to completion would bring a smile to his lips...
And that is all she ever asked for in life.
"You fear...?" Riesenlied slowly cranes her head down. "It will become a new world. Yet..."
A pause. The phrase is never completed.
"Ah... ... the words... escape me. What kind of new world do you envision... Lord Siegfried?"
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.
"Mm. A world under..."
Siegfried tries to say it; he tries to form the words that are a great weight on his heart. He tries to confess that a world underneath Mother's control is worse than the world that he helped the humans burn. He tries to confess that a thousand years of warfare, of friendships shattered, of fathers killed, and a race warped over millennia into monsters was worth nothing.
He cannot. He sees Enkidu's face, as he lay when he was struck down, and the grief overwhelms him. If the sacrifices were not worth it, then what could there be? He always told himself that.
Siegfried rallies, then. The words come back to him. "...a world under Mother's reign is, perhaps, not--"
The air shimmers.
With Riesenlied's presence, Mother's spirit but not body has gained a new mobility, as Siegfried discovers. Ley energy swirls, blue and green light shifting then burning red, to form the unmoving faceplate of their god-queen. Mother looks down upon both of them.
"Ah, Siegfried... my darling Siegfried. And my Riesenlied... how good it is, to see my children reunited, after so long."
Siegfried wilts, visibly -- and then, shakily, drops to a knee.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
The duress is not lost on Riesenlied.
Every observation she makes unbidden underneath that mask... is almost too attentive, in the way one who desires so much approval does to someone so important to her. And when Siegfried's heart seems to weigh heavy, it too seems...
A world under Mother's reign is, perhaps, not...
The unfinished sentence seems to strike some kind of chord in her. Stilling, but altogether not enough to make a seeming difference...
Then--
The air shimmers.
"Ah..."
She can very much feel her presence, effulgent and... bright? It is bright and wonderful, she thinks, conditioned to it as she has been. The Ley energy swirls about her, blue and green lights dancing...
... and then burning red underneath as she appears.
"Mother," she expresses a joy to see her.
It is... a different kind of joy to the soft and bashful one she showed Siegfried.
It feels...
Rote, in a way.
She bows gently, kneeling on both her knees as a priestess would in the presence of her divine.
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.
The fight drains out of Siegfried. The thought he could stand against his goddess; the thought that Mother could be opposed. Once, it felt like fervent faith. Now, it feels like inevitable despair. How could he oppose something that sees his every movement?
How could she be wrong?
His heart sinks, and he bows his head out of defeat and respect alike. "Mother... I see you have found new strength."
"I have, thanks to my Riesenlied." She emphasizes the word 'my.' "I know these last few months have taken a toll on you, Siegfried. I wanted you to know... that Mother has thought of you. That Mother has made her wishes known, to her other children--so that they might buoy you. Alhazred was most understanding."
Siegfried's eyes lift, slowly; the featureless face of Mother stares back down at him. "So I implore you, Siegfried. Enjoy your new toy."
Mother's visage vanishes, then -- bursting apart into motes of blue and green light, which then crackle with a deep, unearthly red energy. Siegfried stares at where she had been, those motes falling; his grey eyes shine with no red, as he stares with a stricken expression.
Even the thought of vengeance, in that moment, flees and leaves him with nothing.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
There is a communality within Siegfried and Riesenlied at that moment. Because she is still empathic, no matter what; not even as a power, but as a person... even when she has been hidden behind this doll-like shell. As a little Hyadean Unit in the dark feels that wavering from faith... to despair.
Riesenlied reacts subtly, with pleasure, as Mother emphasises the 'my' within her speech. A Yarobeleedt-like adoration, like a trained reaction.
Yet it seems to all be for nothing. An emotional reaction elicited from a word, that is soon bereft of meaning, left to fend in the wind.
Hollow. Shallow.
Toy...
She does not use the word herself. It seems to cause her some confusion, though she steps closer to her.
Even in this rote-like state, she seems a little at a loss for words for how he has reacted. She affirms, in a way that seems surface at first... ... yet carries an underlying conviction that no toy or servant should ever possess. That this is a truth shared by this shell and Riesenlied, no matter what.
"I will always be with you, Lord Siegfried. No matter in the dark... nor anywhere else."
<Pose Tracker> Siegfried has posed.
The recognition that this shell is not, in fact, a simalcrum or false Riesenlied provides him no comfort. There is no comfort to be found. Even in her statement of support, he only finds recrimination for himself. Of all the Metal Demons, he felt, he fought hardest and yearned the most for Mother's return.
Now that she has, he has lost everything. His own leadership and actions had led them to this point -- and taken away all that made their victory worthwhile.
He stares down at the ground, despondent. He finds no words for Riesenlied; he feels, instead, the wretch of a man that he used to be. The shell of a person that remained, after the Collapse; after losing Sophia and Lacan. The shell that was only filled, gradually, when he found that little Tainted fledgling.
He closes his eyes and holds his silence, not trusting himself to speak.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
What is there left to do, for this Riesenlied to do, when there is nothing else to respond to? A learned behaviour of silence for silence, as it feels as if everything has crumbled apart...
That there is nothing... that has changed within the span of five hundred years. For all the sacrifices, all the damage, all the grief and despondent fates that have so visited Filgaia and scarred it to where it is now...
... to have amounted to nothing.
Yet for this loyal servant, who is here to make someone very close to her happy...
A little tear is subtly shed without her notice.
How can that be, when she has not been instructed such?
She does not know....