2019-08-28: Emergency Personal Growth Timeline Adjustment
- Log: 2019-08-28: Emergency Personal Growth Timeline Adjustment
- Cast: Ivan, Seraph Ragnell
- Where: The Farplane
- Date: August 29, 2019
- Summary: Ivan and Ragnell call an early end to her mentoring efforts in light of past and looming future events.
===============================<* The Farplane *>=============================== The Farplane is a strange underworld accessed from a mirrorlike portal in Guadosalam; it appears as a stone platform overlooking a vast green field and a towering, horshoe-shaped waterfall. According to Yevonite creed, the Farplane is the gathering place of Spira's dead, who enter the Farplane after they have been sent a summoner, or have long accepted their death. Those not sent to the Farplane remain as the unsent or fiends The Farplane can be visited by the living through an entrance at Guadosalam; visitors will find the pyreflies reacting to their memories to conjure an image of a dead person. While Spirans understand that the image they see on the Farplane is not truly their deceased loved ones, it has also been demonstrated that only the dead can appear in the Farplane itself - attempts to summon the likeness of anyone still living will fail, even if the visitor honestly believes the person is dead. BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jymUTVA3PY
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
The cheesecake bites were a hit during that adventure into the Lapisola Mines the other day, so it looks like that's a recipe that'll be a keeper for a while yet. That's good, since the produce of Spira means there's a lot of unfamiliar ingredients. Still, today she's decided to experiment with that some now that the base has proven solid. She's gathered up a bunch of sour green citrus fruits and squeezed out their juices. They seem similar to lemons, and lemon cheesecake is pretty good, so maybe this'll work out too.
Thus anyone who enters the self-repairing Festina Lente will find Ragnell in the kitchen, prepping the cheese mixture for a key lime cheesecake. The graham base has already been prepared, and awaits patiently on a tin next to the oven.
It'll be a nice treat for the residents of the Festina Lente on top of being a good experiment. That mine adventure had included Talia and Amaranth, the former of whom looks to be in good spirits after her experience, and the latter of whom was... well, things were weird for various reasons, but it turned out okay, Ragnell thinks... but there's still the grumpy li'l bro to handle. Ragnell's been thinking about the battle and how he handled his portion of it... and what her own role in it was. So, this is also an opportunity to be in the Festina Lente for a period of time, increasing her odds of happening to run into him whenever he comes home.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Grumpy li'l bro, indeed. Since the last incident, something somehow even bigger and more threatening has come to hang over the twins -- or at least bigger and more threatening according to the laws of their own universe.
Ivan is looking around the Festina Lente for Talia so that he can check in on her, but finds Ragnell baking, instead. The result is that he stands in the doorway looking dire about something, then trying to look less dire, unsure how to handle this.
"Talia isn't here, is she? Did anyone tell you anything?"
Ragnell doesn't look like anyone has told her anything, but Ivan isn't sure if you can always tell, with Ragnell.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
On the one hand, Ivan's suddenly there in the doorway, looking dire. On the other hand, it's Ivan. He's dire about everything.
Sadly, Ragnell's outing with Talia had taken place before certain news about a certain thing. The Lightning Seraph thus tilts her head at him. "Nope. Saw her a few days ago, though. We went out to the mines in the Thunder Plains an' had ourselves some fun," she replied. "She didn't mention anything in particular. Was she supposed to?"
She doesn't say 'hi.' Chastising Ivan to say 'hi' would just make him uncomfortable, and Ragnell honestly doesn't care about abrupt conversations, so there's no real reason to bring it up.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Ivan doesn't like summarizing terrible situations, but he gives it a stab. "Uh, our father is on his way to Spira and he knows Talia is alive and wants me to kill her. So I guess all of the personal growth I was thinking about trying to do is kind of cancelled and rolled into the standing up to my father thing now and I will have to just kind of see if there are still things after that."
A beat. "Uh, what are you making?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
Hah! A *stab*.
Ragnell raises her eyebrows at Ivan as he babbles his way through an explanation, hands stilling. "Ah," she utters. "Well then." Pause. Then: "Isn't standin' up to your asshole dad a part o' your personal growth, anyway?" She resumes mixing the mixture. It's a sort of very pale green, thanks to the key lime juice. "If your dad's real strong, well, that's why you ask your strong friends to help you murder his dumb ass." She taps the whisk on the side of the bowl, then sets it on the counter. "Assumin', of course, that is in fact what you're plannin' to do," she concludes.
What is she making? "Cheesecake. I perfected a base recipe, so now I'm messin' with it, addin' some fruit juice to see if it's any good," she says as she starts pouring the mixture into the crust tin. "They're a little sweet an' a little sour, so I got high hopes for it. You wanna slice once I finish bakin' it?""
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
<poem>"I'm not sure yet what I'm planning to do," Ivan lies. Bringing along allies (does he have friends? he seems to have some extra family...) strong or otherwise, gives Lubov the opportunity to kill them, capture them, or put them on his hit list. If Ivan could coldly approach it like some kind of sure thing, than maybe, but bringing a kill squad down on your own father is emotionally fraught even if you don't think your father is functionally invincible and capable of taking terrifying revenge.
The plan, such as it is, then, is personal. And probably pretty stupid. But the beauty of not telling anyone about his stupid plan is that he doesn't have to accept constructive criticism.
"...But it isn't going to include killing Talia, so I'm standing up to him one way or another. ...I guess I thought I thought defying him would be either the first step or the last step of personal growth, not like the third step after trying to get a hobby and I'm not sure there were any other steps, maybe only the second step, then..."
Ragnell offers him cheesecake from the future. "Um, all right, I guess. Maybe." Ivan is torn between being tsundere about cheesecake and not wanting Ragnell to know he's the kind of person who takes offers of food seriously enough to get tsundere about cheesecake. Isn't he supposed to have transcended this kind of thing now that life as he knows it is crashing to an end?!
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"You should make your mind up quick, then," Ragnell says, apparently taking his lie at face value. "For the record, if you don't think you can take him in a straight-up fight, that's what traps are for. An' wouldn't it be just *tragic* if Sin happened to aggro at the boat he was on?" Not that she's sure how you could aggro Sin onto someone else and get away with it. But that's the type of mindset you have to have if you want to kill someone you can't possibly beat yourself.
Anyway.
"Hmmm..." The side of her mouth quirks up. "You know, Ivan. Part of what gives someone depth of character is lovin' someone so much they'd do anything for them." She reaches out and, if he lets her, tousles his dark hair. "I think you'll do just fine on your own. You don't really like gettin' bossed around anyway, huh? That Shadow Dragon guy drove you nuts tryin'a' act like he was your teacher."
She turns back to the cheesecake, using a rubber spatula to get the remains of the batter in. Once she's smoothed the surface of the cake, she pops the tin into the pre-heated oven, then offers the spatula for Ivan to lick the raw batter off of. Seraphim do not need to worry about salmonella. "Have a pre-treat, then," she says. "If the batter tastes terrible, the cake itself probably won't be much better." ...So he's really her guinea pig. "Anyway. You didn't seem too keen on me impartin' lessons on you either. Maybe it was just bad timin', but..." She shrugs and leans on the counter. "When I think on it, your big thing is that you don't feel like a real person, right? 'Cuz you just do what you're told like a good little killing machine. So doin' what a teacher tells you to is counterintuitive, whether it's about killin' or about how to get a hobby. So." She folds her arms and looks him over. "If you don't really want that... I'll back off. Jus' go an' do what you want, Ivan."
That's how he'll figure out who he is, anyway. (Even if 'who he is' turns out to be a dumbass.)
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Sinking a boat full of people is probably not the way Ivan wants to attempt to start a new chapter in his life, but it would be a pretty creative way to kill him.
Ivan skeptically permits the hair tousling, though he leans away slightly and seems afterward like he's trying to determine whether he should have evaded it and taken offense to it, instead.
"Well, that cult leader guy was a horrible piece of shit who tried to kill Talia, so not wanting him to be my teacher isn't really a comment about teachers," he says.
She's right though that he was not really open to the well-intentioned guidance of anyone else during that battle, either. Mostly because they were all telling him to calm down. But also...
"Being imparted lessons is kind of..." he frowns, tasting some of the batter from the spatula and hoping the offer was not some kind of trick (??? Ivan what).
"...It's too similar to being belittled." It makes him feel small and stupid to not already know the things people are trying to tell him. And it makes him want to disagree to prove that his way also makes sense.
"Maybe that does mean I should be trying to make up my own mind about things. Or it doesn't at all."
He has a feeling that people who are legitimately confident don't feel that way about advice.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
The batter, at least, is indeed delicious. It's key lime pie, it's going to be fabulous, come on.
"True," Ragnell admits, amused. "But, am I really any better a role model if you're tryin'a' get *out* of the murder business? I might be amazing an' sexy an' charming an' full o' character, but I'm kinda the enemy of the world. One of the worlds, anyway." She doesn't tousle him for too long, at least, seeing his grumpycattiness about it. At least he *doesn't* take offense at it and instead merely grudgingly tolerates it.
But... "Belittled, huh," Ragnell muses, tilting her head at him as she sets the egg timer. Being a part of the Festina Lente, it is shaped like an actual egg, and will explode into a chick when the timer is done. "Well, some people do need to figure things out for themselves, that's true. An' in the end, only you can figure out who you are."
She doesn't remark that nobody, not even Seraphim, are born knowing everything, so having lessons imparted onto you has nothing to do with being belittled. It *can*, but only if it's about stuff you already know. Otherwise, it's just... learning from someone who's already been there.
But that, too, might be something Ivan needs to figure out for himself. Either way.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"You're only an enemy of just the one world, then?" Ivan asks, as casually as possible, like she might forget she decided not to answer questions about that topic from him if he sneaks them in with the right attitude. If he has limited time left in this world, though, he might as well have some cheesecake batter and try to get some Ragnell lore. Reasonable goals within the timeframe.
"It does sound right that I probably need to figure things out on my own. Which sucks. Being told what to do sucks. Figuring out what to do on my own sucks. It would have been a lot better if I had done this stuff years ago, when I was supposed to. I got a lot weirder about everything in the past couple of years."
He silences himself with another taste of batter, eyeing the egg timer. Complaining about it isn't a good use of potentially limited time.
"It's good."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"I dunno, you'll have to ask the worlds that," Ragnell replies. "But all considered, I'm pretty sure I'm not in with Althena's Guard either. Leo was there at the Sanctuary fightin' K.K. an' me too, an' I'm pretty sure Althena sittin' at the heart o' th' Guard wouldn't like me much anyway." She considers calling Ivan out about trying to ask her about herself again, but decides to let it lie. He'd probably appreciate thinking he got away with something more.
"Well, it's better'n' givin' up on life entirely," Ragnell points out. "There's always the option of runnin' away and buryin' your head in the sand, but if you did somethin' like that, then you really would be a boring loser. So I guess it depends on how okay you are with that."
The past couple of years. Huh. Ragnell tilts her head at him. Talia was zapped to Filgaia via Azado only about a year or so ago... or is Ivan just fudging the timeline? Instead of asking about that, she decides to ask, "What were you like before you got weird about shit?"
He likes the batter. Ragnell smiles and nods. "Cool. Guess we'll see how the cake itself turns out, then."
It'll be a little while yet before it's done, though.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"I don't know if fighting with the Guard or even Althena is the same thing as being an enemy of the world..." says Ivan. There would be a lot of people in that boat if that were the case.
Ragnell asks him about the time in his life before he was weird. It might be an overstatement to suggest that he was ever not weird, but he did mean something specific when he said it, so he answers to that.
"When I was 'gonna run away someday,' I think I -- you know... respected myself more. I thought that one day the power balance would tip, and he would realize he made us into fucking killers and we were too scary to control. And then we'd be free. So I acted like somebody who was going to be on the outside one day and would have to be able to maybe look people in the eye sometimes. I tried to help my targets dissappear instead of killing them when I thought I could. I tried to... ... kind of be a good person within the boundaries of having to be a bad person. Stuff like that."
Ivan shrugs.
"But when I tried to scare him, it went the opposite way instead, and I realized the future I thought was going to happen probably wasn't so I had to start being someone who was never going to run away. So I got kind of weird. And then Talia dissappeared and it didn't make sense for me to even be 'someone' anymore so I got even weirder, probably."
...Looks like it was Ivan lore instead somehow.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"For some, maybe. But the Goddess Althena gave life to Lunar, and the Guard exists to protect Her. Someone who was anathema enough to Her would, in essence, be fightin' the world. A little like how Lucia the Destroyer gets treated," Ragnell points out. "But fine. I'll grant ya that just bein' on the Guard's bad side isn't quite the same thing."
She doesn't clarify further than that, though, instead asking Ivan about his weird self.
She listens to his response too, humming to herself and nodding along. A good person within the confines of being a bad person, huh. "So you tried once an' when it went badly, you gave up? Yeah, that'd make ya weird all right. You let your dad get to you. Well--'let' is unfair, I guess. He's no doubt been makin' a point of makin' himself seem impossible to overcome so you would react like that. He's probably in your head in a real, real bad way, an' that's part o' what makes you 'weird.' But--
"Oh right. I wasn't gonna try to talk you 'round anymore, was I. Hm."
Ragnell rubs her chin, then frowns at herself. "...I do this kinda thing a lot, don't I..." she mumbles, as much to herself as to Ivan. She makes an annoyed sound, then scratches her head under her hat vigorously. "Guess I need to work on myself, too, huh." She shakes her head. "Anyway. Yeah, I get what ya mean. Well, good luck with sortin' all that out. At least you got some self-awareness, though. That'll help you out a lot while you're tryin'a' figure out who 'you' are."
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
"I guess I was thinking of 'enemy of the world' less as the world being at odds with you because of major philosophical agreements and more as you trying to get rid of the world," Ivan says. Maybe he has been taking the Filgaia incident that he heard about too literally all along.
But there is weirdness to discuss, as well. Perhaps Ragnell sensed -- or simply saw -- Ivan getting increasingly sour during her speculation about his giving up too easily and letting his father get into his head -- because she aborts mission and apologizes. Some of his tension releases with that, but he still looks a little like a cat that got fluffed the wrong way.
But despite his expression, his words are a bit more conciliatory. "I don't know what I really expected you to say when I told you that stuff. Maybe advice is just a thing to say sometimes so people know you were listening."
Ivan rarely knows the right thing to say to people when they tell him things either, for that matter.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Ragnell has posed.
"Oh, true. Yeah, okay, I see what you're sayin'," Ragnell says, nodding slowly when Ivan clarifies his meaning. Yeah, that would make more sense, wouldn't it? A quite literal enemy of the world. She chuckles. She still doesn't clarify about that whole incident. But then, Ivan knew she probably wouldn't, right? Maybe another day. Maybe.
And maybe Ragnell saw Ivan's sourpuss face grow even more sour... and maybe Ivan says the best he can in response to that, too. Either way, Ragnell blinks at him, then laughs and gives him a smile. This time, at least, she doesn't ruffle his hair. "Maybe," she agrees. "You're a surprisingly good kid, huh, Ivan?"
Ivan is saved from having to respond to this when the egg ticker reaches zero and promptly breaks into pieces, revealing a bright yellow chick inside that goes BUCK-CAW! BUCK-CAW! BUCK-CAW!! until Ragnell pushes the pieces back together and turns it off. Time for cake! ...After it cools, anyway.
<Pose Tracker> Ivan has posed.
Denied Ragnell lore again. Ivan will have to hope for a part 2 to his saga of weirdness if he ever wants to get more.
You're a surprisingly good kid, huh, Ivan?
"Uh, I don't know if that is a thing that is accur--AAH"
That was in response to the egg timer suddenly turning into a chicken that starts clucking triumphantly. Ivan looks ready to fight it for a second and then slowly tries to recover his dignity like it didn't happen.
...At least there will be cheesecake.