2019-07-13: Sulkiness Transfer Complete

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  • Log: 2019-07-13: Sulkiness Transfer Complete
  • Cast: Ivan, Seraph Ragnell
  • Where: The Moonflow
  • Date: July 13, 2019
  • Summary: Ivan encounters a rare Moping Ragnell within the Festina Lente. He tries to confront her about spilling his secrets, and she proceeds to read him like a book.

===========================<* The Moonflow *>===========================

The Moonflow is a large river that bisects Spira's largest island into southern and northern halves. Strange flowers called Moonlilies grow on the Moonflow's banks, attracting pyreflies that gather on its surface at night, making the water sparkle. Although a beautiful area, the weather tends to be overcast more often than not, the souls of the dead providing the most reliable source of illumination.

The primary method of crossing the Moonflow is aboard a shoopuf - an elephantine creature that can swim across the expansive river. The crossing service is funded by the Temple of Yevon and is free of charge.

BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wcVnJQ-FN4
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    This has not been a great patch of time for Lightning Seraph Ragnell. A lot has gone on in a short amount of time, and the specifics of it have left her... under the weather, we'll say. In a thunderous mood, perhaps. Feeling stormy--okay, we'll stop. But for those used to her usual charmingly assholish, laidback, devil-may-care personality, it might come as quite a surprise to see her wrapped up in a nest of blankets, on one of the comfier couches in the Festina Lente, brooding over a large mug of coffee and a plate of chocolate rusks, perched on the end table nearby, as she reads a penny dreadful Amaranth had picked up from Filgaia. (Probably it came in a basket with a bunch of other penny dreadfuls.) Her beloved hat is perched on a hat rack further down the wall, and she's traded her usual outfit for... What else? Flannel pajamas. This is the pajama house. Get used to it.
    
    Granted, to get used to it, first one'd have to find the Festina Lente, then enter it despite the fact that it looks super sad right now. Depressed housing can be kind of off-putting to the average human. That's totally not Ragnell's fault, though. *Regardless*.
    
    With a loud sigh somewhere between frustrated and gloomy, Ragnell turns the pages. "Not even a *good* murder," she mumbles at whatever's on the pages.

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

Ivan was not specifically looking for Ragnell; he wasn't even really aware that Ragnell was a possible encounter in the Festina Lente. He sort of was expecting to potentially see someone wrapped up in a nest of blankets when he saw how sad the house was looking today, but it was probably supposed to be Katherine.

When he registers that it is Ragnell, and a sad Ragnell at that, confused emotions flicker across his face, with a battle aura kind of flickering on and off around him indecisively.

"What are you doing he-- -- No! I know that! I know what you're doing here! Kind of! Probably!!"

She's here because she's Katherine's sister, right?

"But I want to yell at you! What are you moping about! It's not something really serious to do with Katherine, is it?!"

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    In all fairness, Ragnell is not really a common or even usual encounter in the Festina Lente. In fact, she's a pretty rare encounter! Unfortunately, that nets Ivan absolutely nothing. Nothing except an unhappy Ragnell. Definitely not a sad Ragnell. Ragnell doesn't do sad. She doesn't, okay? OKAY?? Okay.
    
    Her red eyes flick up at Ivan as he stops and babbles at her. She scowls. "It's nothin' to do with Katherine," she says curtly, which is mostly true. "What do you care what I'm mopin' about? Your entire life is one long smear of mopin' about, peppered with the occasional brutal murder." Page flip. "Could probably spin a better yarn about it than this waste o' paper, even. But sure. You wanna yell? Go right ahead. I ain't stoppin' ya."
    
    Another page flip, entirely more aggressive than it needs to be. Ragnell almost certainly did not read that page, but at least she didn't tear it, either.

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

Ivan scowls back at her. "Because if I had said, 'Ragnell, you screwed me over by telling a girl I like her--' which isn't true, by the way, it's only true that you said it-- 'how could you, you are the worst, I am having huge problems now because of this inexplicable coincidence of some stupid words I said somehow getting translated while I wasn't looking!!' and then you said Katherine died or something, then I would have had to open a fiery chasm in the earth to jump into. So I needed to know beforehand." A beat, and his brows furrow. "Nobody did die, right?"

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    'Nobody did die, right?'
    
    Ragnell's gaze flicks to one side. "...No."
    
    This is true, although it might not sound like it.
    
    "Take it you talked to Lydia 'gain, then. So you don't like her after all? Too bad, she'll be disappointed. She likes you." Coffee sip. "Goddess only knows why."
    
    Because naturally she can't just say that someone has positive regard for Ivan; it might make him happy, and that wouldn't do.

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

"How do you know my entire life is moping, anyway? Maybe I used to be fun!!" There is a non-zero chance he explicitly told her his entire life was moping.

"...and I guess you know I'm an assassin now, that's fine, whatever, you're like... almost family, I guess." Having never been aknowledged as a member of his own family, Ivan has absolutely no idea if their sisters eventually getting married or otherwise permanently committed to one another would make them family or not. He never got, like, introduced to second cousins or anything that would give an idea of how extended family ties are supposed to work.

So you don't like her after all?

Ivan blanches. "Do not-- absolutely do not-- go and tell her I don't like her!! Or that I do like her! No further sharing of what I may or may not think of Lydia!"

Angrily: "Please!"

He then commences a furious internal struggle not to ask her for clarification on the point about Lydia liking him. Who invented that stupid ambiguous word, anyway?

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    Ragnell stops sipping her coffee to fix a stare on Ivan. "Were you?" she asks, as arch as her eyebrows.
    
    Almost family. What a concept. Ragnell stares into space for a moment as she considers being 'almost family' with a human. Then she shakes her head. That was already a thing with Amaranth and Talia. Ivan's nothing new. "Look at it this way: no matter how big an asshole I am to you, I'll never be more of an asshole than your dad," she remarks. It's hard to tell if she genuinely means that to be reassuring or not.
    
    Then Ivan blanches and begs, angrily, that she shut her yap about his feelings or lack or presence thereof about Lydia. She stares at him for a moment across the lip of her mug. Then she settles back.
    
    "*Ah*. So it's like that, huh. Well, not like I don't know how that is." Another sip. She picks up a chocolate rusk and cracks it between her teeth, then gestures between the plate and Ivan with what remains. "Have a rusk. They're fresh; baked 'em an hour ago."

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

Were you?

"...a little? I mean, no!" Ivan needs to internalize this new reality that stuff he says to Ragnell might make its way to other people in the worst possible way.

Ragnell's comment about his father gets kind of a skeptical squint, like he's thinking it was supposed to be offensive but can't quite figure out the angle of the insult. Mostly it's just weird to have a new person in his sphere who knows about his father and the associated bullshit.

"I mean, I guess not, but if you decide you're going for the title, I'd like some warning."

Well, not like I don't know how that is."What do you mean you know how that is? You don't seem like you have any issue telling people how you feel. Or... don't feel."

Ivan shrugs, hesitates, and then takes a rusk, because he doesn't have the stamina left to handle being teased for refusing it on some angsty pretext. He examines it for a moment and then takes a cautious bite.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    Ragnell snorts. "Nah." ...nah what? Nah she's not going for the title? Nah she won't give him warning? Another mystery for Ivan to ponder, because she absolutely does not clarify her meaning!!
    
    At least the rusks are good. They're crisp and chocolatey and a little bit chewy and absolutely delicious. If Ivan wants to drink to go with them, there's half a pot of coffee on the kitchen counter, and probably milk in the fridge.
    
    Ivan demands to know what she means. Ragnell eyes him. She tosses the penny dreadful to one side without interest, then shifts on the couch to sit sort of upright. "Let's see. You asked, so I'll take a total stab in the dark here. But: I'm gonna say you probably hate yourself."
    
    Before Ivan can protest or ask what that even has anything to do with Ragnell knowing how he feels, she continues on, unrelenting: "I mean, it follows. You murder people for a livin'. You tried to murder Jay on orders, so that'll include even nice people, people who don't deserve what you do to them. You can't stand what you do, but--maybe you're tryin' to protect your sister. Maybe you're scared o' what your dad will do to you if you run away, too. But you can't stop, you keep goin' back even though you got a way to escape right here, and so you loathe yourself for bein' too weak.
    
    "Since you're weak an' a terrible person, you don't deserve love. You sure don't deserve love from a nice girl like Lydia. You can't understand why someone like her would love you anyway, an' it scares you that you might love her back. Or maybe just the entire concept o' love confuses an' disconcerts you, on account o' you not really knowin' what it is or what it means. Either way, you keep your distance. Not too far, because you want to be near her, but not too near. If she gets too near, she'll get hurt, jus' like all the rest. An' you can't stand havin' her body on the tab o' your soul, too.
    
    "So--there you are. Not wantin' to like her, but not bein' willin' to pretend you *don't* like her, an' not knowin' what to do with yourself an' all these complicated feelings that just won't go away. Because at the end o' th' day, all you can afford to rely on is yourself. And you're just the *worst*."
    
    She munches the rest of her rusk, then reaches for another. "Or whatever," she concludes, anticlimactically. "Well? How close did I stab? Total whiff? Right through the heart? Or somewhere in between?"

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

Ivan can at least rest assured in the knowledge that he probably isn't enough of a concern in Ragnell's world to rate trying to break his father's record for assholishness. At worst she decides to destroy Lunar while he's standing on it. He should really ask what was up with the whole destroying Filgaia attempt thing that he heard about.

Ragnell takes a stab in the dark and pretty much does get him right in the heart.

The initial look of indignation and protest is wiped off his face as she goes on... ... and on... and he he sort of shuts down in stages, as she describes him to himself in what is honestly more detail than he has been willing or able to do in his own mind. It's not all right, and it's not everything, but it's exposure enough to make his soul essentially panic and depart his body, as he just stands there blue-screening at her for a while

When he manages to scrape together enough of the fine dust of his obliterated ego to muster a facial expression, he looks vaguely dismayed. Eventually he wrestles that into a wincing smile.

"Ha, sure, it was okay." he responds, weakly. "But that could just be anybody, right? You'd be good at doing those vague fortunes that everybody hears and goes 'that sounds just like me...'"

Desperate to turn the spotlight around on her, he adds, "So didn't you try to destroy the Blue Star, once? What was all that about?"

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    Watching Ivan as his soul departs his body, Ragnell takes a calm sip of her coffee and waits for him to pull himself together enough to be able to respond. The reaction alone tells her much, as does the cracked and broken smile he pulls together to go with his attempt at a cool dismissal. She looks him right in the eye.
    
    "*Is* it just anybody?"
    
    That, too, she lets him wallow in for a while. When he in turn tries to turn it back on her like she turned it on him, she chuckles. "It was about love," she replies. Considering that she was trying to destroy the world by way of corrupting the Guardian of Love, this could mean literally anything.

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

Ivan's lifeforce is replenishing in the background, allowing more of his defensive systems to come back online. "Sure it is -- or maybe it was about you. Have you got some issues? You've probably got some issues -- I mean -- destroying a world is a thing that takes some issues as a prerequisite."

He folds his arms. "And destroying a world for love -- how does that even work? Everybody dies if you destroy the world, right? Whether you love them or not. Unless the destroying is a figure of speech and you were just trying to change it in a way that didn't work for most people..." A beat passes, during which a worrying thought occurs to Ivan. "...Or was it revenge?"

Ragnell, if someone important to you has been dead this whole conversation and you misled him at the outset, he will be very disappointed.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    Has she got some issues? Ragnell has to laugh at that one. Unfortunately for Ivan, it's the 'I'm starting to get cheered up' kind of laughter, so he's probably not getting the results he's aiming for with this. "Give it up, Ives. You've got too little background information to even *try* makin' a blind stab at this one. If you wanna harass me about why I do what I do, try askin' around some more and seein' what you can patch together." She reaches out and pats him on the shoulder. "Though, to be honest, you're about eight hundred years too early to go around casually destroyin' folks like I jus' destroyed you."
    
    She grabs another couple of rusks, then says, "Instead, have another rusk an' gimme some feedback. I make these as travel snacks for dungeons an' the like, but they're jus' fine for sulkin' away in a sad-faced house. I've been doin' cheesecake bites lately too, but this is what I had ingredients for, so it's what you got. 'Sides, it's dead easy to make. Chocolate, milk, bread, melt the chocolate an' milk together, dip in the bread, bake, bam, you're done. It's so simple, I bet even you could do it!"

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

"I wasn't trying to guess your whole inner psyche," Ivan complains. He doubts he could ever manage to do that for anybody anyway, even given eight hundred years. He'd be a lot worse at it in eight hundred years, even, considering he'd just be a skeleton somewhere at that point.

"I was asking you questions. Questions that you ignored. I'm supposed to ask other people about your issues? I bet you didn't tell them either."

Maybe Katherine knows, but Ivan doesn't feel like he knows her well enough to start prodding her about why her sister wanted to destroy the world. He's trying to be on reasonably good behavior with Katherine.

"Maybe 'why did you want to destroy the world' is too personal -- even though I think if you do something that big, you ought to consider it everybody's business, but I'm not from Filgaia, so I'm willing to give a pass on that not being my business. But I think you should tell me something about what's going on with you, since apparently you already managed to guess my whole life story and that's really imbalanced."

As a further offering, not that he thinks he should have to give one, he considers the rusks as requested, taking another one and contemplating it as he eats it.

"They looked like they would be a lot drier and harder to chew than they are. So they have an element of surprise to them."

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    "Here's a valuable life lesson, champ: jus' 'cuz someone asks you a question, doesn't mean you have to answer it," Ragnell drawls. "Anyway, if you don't wanna do it, you don't have to. Spendin' a lot o' time thinkin' about someone you don't like *is* awful stupid."
    
    She drains the rest of her coffee as Ivan chides her about attempted global destruction being everyone's business, or at least everyone from Filgaia's business, and stands up. "Nope! I don't care whose business the end o' th' world is. My reasons are my own," she replies as she walks over to the kitchen for a refill. So it's just as well that Ivan wasn't going to press her on that anyway.
    
    When she returns with a full mug, instead of flopping back on the couch, she leans on the wall next to the end table and gives Ivan a piercing look he may not like. "You know how I managed to guess your whole life story? I learned a few key pieces of information about you, an' extrapolated outwards. You humans have a tendency to follow certain patterns, an' once a gal knows what those patterns are, it's pretty easy to figure things out from there. Anyway, I already told you somethin' 'bout myself. It's not my fault you can't read between the lines."
    
    She pats his shoulder again, assuming he lets her, and walks around him to flop back onto the couch. She is absolutely not offering anything else new. However, when he eats another rusk and comments they have an element of surprise, she lights up and grins at him as if genuinely pleased. Which, in point of fact, she is. "You're all right, Ivo," she replies. "You want somethin' from me in exchange from crushin' your soul? I'll help you figure out what t' do about Lydie." She raises the mug of coffee at him. "Whenever you're ready for her, that is."

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

Ivan is looking extremely sour at this point, because not only did she refuse to answer him, as far as he's concerned, she called him naive for thinking she would, and stupid for not picking up on whatever she did slip into the conversation. Which... he now has no idea what it could have been, and that bothers him.

He dodges the shoulder pat with a quick lean to one side. Now it seems that he is the one who's sulking, as if the sulkiness had been mysteriously transferred.

"What do you mean, help me figure out what to do about her? Not being ready is the whole thing, if I was ready I wouldn't need any help. And I'm not going to be ready without a whole... life transfer or something. I need to be someone else. Or help her find someone else." He throws up his hands. "Why am I still telling you stuff! You're just laughing at me like I'm a kid."

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    Ragnell's feeling better, and Ivan's feeling worse! Yup, things are really comin' up Ragnell.
    
    "Ivan, you *are* a kid," she explains with extraordinary gentleness. "Even by human standards, you're a kid. That's why your life is so unfair. Because what you've been forced into should never've been done to someone as young and powerless as you." She shrugs. "But it has, and now you have to deal with it. Not bein' an ass there, just layin' it out for you. You can't do a life transfer. You can't be someone else. You're just you. And figuring out what to do with the shitty hand you've been dealt, without denyin' it, while carryin' that weight with a straight back an' clear eyes, is how you'll get stronger."
    
    She shakes her head. "Anyway, I'll let you in on a secret, Ives: even no-powers townie humans don't have their shit together! They agonize about what to do about the people they like and how to figure out their future and how to deal with their asshole parents and how to be the person they want to be. You've jus' got higher stakes goin' on than most. So actually, you're pretty normal.
    
    "Lydie, now, *she's* a total weirdo. That's what I like about her, mind you. But 'cuz she's a weirdo, you really don't need to worry so hard about hurtin' her. She'll let you know what's what. You just have to listen to her, not just hear but *listen*, an' not overthink things so hard." Another long sip. Then, thoughtfully: "'Cuz, as it turns out, it doesn't matter if you're awful. The people closest to you are gonna love you for who you are anyway, regardless o' what you do, an' whether they should or not."

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

"I guess you didn't read me that well," Ivan says, a little relieved. "I already know a lot of that."

It doesn't mean she's not right, but he doesn't feel like she has the full picture. At least some portion of his soul isn't like, painfully obvious to her at a glance. Small comforts.

"Maybe I shouldn't tell you the rest. Maybe I should make you go on a scavenger hunt asking people I didn't tell."

He shrugs. "But I have a feeling you don't wanna know that bad."

His expression quirks into a grimace as he thinks it through. "...Also, I definitely don't want you asking a bunch of random people leading questions about my past, why would I even suggest that." He got a little lost in the competitiveness of it all.

"That was mostly good advice if you were talking to someone who intended to solve their problems, though."

Ivan is not really sure he's that person. He's pretty sure he isn't.

<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.

    "Pretty sure I wouldn't have to go on a scavenger hunt askin' random people. I'd just have to talk to Talia, then track down your dad and spy on him for a while," Ragnell points out. And that's certainly true about not having the full picture. Knowing human patterns is great for getting the broad strokes, but for the particular, individual details? You really do have to get the hard, personal facts. There's always going to be some part of a person that you can't see until they allow you to see. She considers him for a moment, looking him up and down, as she takes another drink. Thinking. Considering. Really swishing what he says. What he doesn't say.
    
    "Well, yeah. If you hate yourself, of course you aren't gonna try that hard to solve your problems. It's just plain easier to be miserable with the status quo than break out for the sake of an uncertain happiness," Ragnell eventually replies. "I guess you *could* consider that jus' now me talkin' for the pleasure o' listening to my mellifluous voice." ragnell how do you even know what 'mellifluous' means--oh right, 800-year-old seraph, carry on "But I kinda think you *want* to fix your life, even if you aren't willin' to put the work in for it. How do I know that?"
    
    She turns around and spreads her arms to encompass the whole of the Festina Lente. The place where his sister and her sister are together and happy. The place that represents a joyful, peaceful future. "Because you keep coming back here. If you'd *really* given up on yourself..." She slides her eye back at him. "...you wouldn't be tormentin' yourself like this."
    
    Ragnell lets that idea stretch out into silence as she watches him. Then she half-turns to face him. "But as you say, it's up to you, in the end. You can do what you want. An' I'll keep doin' what I want."
    
    She polishes off this mug, sets it down on the end table, and leaves for a back room. When she returns a moment later, she's in her usual Lunarian garb, minus the hat--which she fetches from the rack and fixes atop her head.
    
    The Seraph smiles at the young assassin. It's an actual, real smile. "Good talk, Ivan. If you ever need or want someone to confide in, just ring me up an' ask me to keep it a secret. Sis'll tell ya I'm real good at that when I wanna be."
    
    And then she heads for the door.

<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.

Ivan makes such a face at Ragnell suggesting tracking down and spying on Lubov that it looks like he might sprain a muscle. The thought of worlds colliding like that is just unfathomable. As far as he is concerned, these experiences in Spira are so far outside of anything that ever happened to him prior to them that they may have been taking place in some kind of parallel universe, and he might even be hallucinating them.

"Who says either of them know?" Ivan says, doubting it even though he's... pretty sure they don't. He's tried his best not to dump the worst of his issues on Talia. And it's not like Lubov knows anything about his kids' emotional lives. Though maybe Ragnell could miraculously construct the consequences of the practicalities?

Ragnell aknowledges that it's difficult to change if you hate yourself, and despite any efforts she might be making to be conciliatory, it makes him feel about two inches tall.

He poorly stifles a sigh. He doesn't know if he believes her that his coming here is proof that he does want to change. Doesn't he come here for Talia? That isn't about change, that's about clinging to the one good thing he's ever had, even if it's changing in spite of him.

"Wait -- you're leaving? I was going to leave. We can't leave at the same time. I can't be in here by myself--" He doesn't quite know why, it just seems wrong. It breaks some kind of rule. He'll figure out which one later.

She's already going for the door, though!

"Fine, whatever, I'll leave in a different direction! He then stalks over to a window on a perpendicular wall, so he can let himself out that way. The house probably has other doors, but he's too flustered to look for one.

Yes... though humans may have the same basic issues and patterns in broad strokes, sometimes they do have their own particular weird quirks you have to kind of see for yourself.