2019-11-11: Memory and Its (Dis)Contents
- Log: Memory and Its (Dis)Contents
- Cast: Marivel Armitage, Avril Vent Fleur
- Where: Meria City - Outer Regions
- Date: November 11, 2019
- Summary: Avril, still mulling over what she must say to her friends, has an encounter with Marivel. A discussion on memory is had.
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Meria City, the Chateau, and her Castle are where Marivel usually spends her time. After having to check in on Tio earlier and ensure that she is in good hands, Marivel suddenly finds herself with something she doesn't typically have: Free time.
She first visits the bakery to purchase a box of DELIICOUS DONUTS before ultimately making her way to a bench and sits herself down, under the cover of the bakery's awning, and sets up an umbrella over her head just to be extra careful.
She hums merrily to herself as she slowly opens up her box of DELICIOUS DONUTS and the smell of freshly baked goods wafts out of said box and into the world beyond! Her minions, Hob and Nob, float nearby pestering passerbys with love and attention. Unfortunately, Hob and Nob are a bit of an acquired taste and more than a few people end up beating feet rather than sticking around to enjoy their attention.
But even though she is relaxing, Marivel is attentive to her surroundings, keeping an eye out, at least, for what's going on in front of her.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Into this scene of tranquility walks one young woman with long silver hair. Now that they've moved beyond the more welcoming environs of the Thames -- anything may go there but it would be more difficult to cross paths with Veruni or their hires there without the antagonistic parties coming to some mischief -- Avril has traded out her usual garb for something a little more mundane. A little less obvious.
But even here it's likely that her appearance would be obvious to the astute. While she hasn't seen a wanted poster with her face here yet, it goes without saying that she cannot be assured this will remain as such.
And the less likely the Veruni are to discover where she is now, the easier it will be to find what she's seeking so desperately.
What she should be seeking so desperately.
As the Knight had said, she falters, even now.
Avril -- and her friends -- have found that similarly, they have a bit of downtime as they ask about and work to figure out the next steps they should take.
She's grasped it almost desperately, this need for a normal life.
Just a little more.
Before she steps over the threshold at last, and...
And after that, she doesn't know what will become of her.
But for today, she can pretend that hers is a normal life.
Her gaze sweeps the crowd as she moves along, stalling a while at this sidewalk stand -- is this something Dean would like? or what about this, would Rebecca like it? -- before moving along--
"...Oh?"
Her attention lingers on one of the floating machines. She--
Her gaze soon finds Marivel.
Picking up the pace, she approaches the umbrella'd woman. "...Marivel, was it not?"
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel's nose wrinkles briefly and she looks up, spotting Avril. It DOES take her a few moments longer than normal but Marivel is nothing if not astute. She tilts her head curiously and then glances around the town as if keeping an eye out for Veruni representatives HERSELF before the tension fades from her shoulders. Marivel has heard a bit from Avril from multiple sources at this point but she before she worries about any of that, Marivel holds out instead the box of donuts she had previously purchased and says, "Want one?"
Hob and Nob chirp merrily at Avril and bob through the air up and down and spin around her head. They have their ways of showing affection and they are pretty easy with showing off said affecition.
"That's correct. Marivel it is. Hello Avril! Welcome to Meria. I think you'll find it's a lovely city." She is largely restful aside from that moment of tension. "Even though it's more a home away from home than a home, I pray it does not suffer the same troubles as Adlehyde has. Ah, but perhaps t'would be fitting after what happened to poor Justin."
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
At a glance, she'd be as almost any other Merian maiden: her more unusual hairpin has been changed for something less speaking to wealth beyond measure and instead is made of wood. A simpler ribbon is wound in her hair, the rest of which hangs loose as always. But try as she might, the way in which she carries herself is still a betrayal to the careful watcher that this is no run-of-the-mill resident of Meria Boule.
Someone might well guess royalty in disguise and they'd be technically correct.
Just wrong about whose royalty.
Avril hesitates at the offer, though. "Ah... perhaps, in a little while yet?"
Then dips her head in a nod, as if to approximate a shallow bow. "Indeed. It is good to speak to you properly again, Marivel. Though, I have been in the town for a little while now..."
Before she approaches then settles down on the bench alongside Marivel, for the moment peoplewatching.
A brief smile crosses her face as she watches Hob and Nob.
"They really do remind me of Trouble and Strife," she remarks, smoothing out the creases in her long skirt.
"...I hope it does not," she remarks, that smile fading into oblivion. "This place... I would like to believe that some places in this world can remain untouched."
Dean's hometown comes to mind. Is everything there still alright?
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"Heh, well, Trouble and Strife remind me of Hob and Nob." Marivel does not force donuts upon Avril, taking one for herself and holding it up with a finger. It's a simple glazed donut. Marivel likes to save her favorites until just as they start to cool.
"Sadly to be free is to invite tragedy. To be protected is to invite tyranny. Far too much of the world appreciates safety over their freedoms and yet being wholly free is simply differently dangerous."
She sets the box of donuts between her and Avril, in case the ancient queen changes her mind.
"I suppose a similar question is before you. Remembering, not remembering, both invite dangers. Both offer gifts. To balance twixt the two of them, well, that may be even more difficult than governing a city. Governing the self is always more difficult. Even from a young age my people are taught to do just that and yet we are not free from bungling."
"Memories are often tricky. You can lose them from decades but find them all again in an instant. Do you yet have a preference?" Marivel asks. "Between learning your past and moving on from it? Or perhaps another path before you?"
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
"Tragedy or tyranny..." Avril murmurs, creasing her forehead.
Is there a middle ground? Somewhere between suffering and brutality? Some point between annihilation of body and annihilation of soul? Perhaps but--
As she is now, she certainly cannot see it. Perhaps it would need someone like...
"..."
She considers, for the moment, what she has learned.
What the impression of the old thing in the dark voices to her, from time to time.
"And tragedy can open the way to tyrrany, too. Once others have lost too much, they become open to protecting what they have left at any cost."
So the cycle repeats.
Protect what you have lest it become lost to you. That is the law, murmurs the impression in her mind.
Avril does not so much as flinch, now.
Not even when Marivel directly approaches the heart of the problem.
"...Yes," she answers, after a long pause. It seems only natural, now, to address the question that coils at the heart of her very being.
As much as she continues to shirk away from it with her friends.
"To not remember, and have the past catch up to me. Or to remember, and become lost in it face-on. At times, it seems to be merely a question of approach."
Or how long she continues to play this game with herself.
"A preference..."
She shakes her head.
"I know already what must be done. I... must learn who I really am. I must reclaim my memories. I made a promise to myself, I believe."
Otherwise why would she have sought 'Johnny Appleseed'?
Herself?
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
"Why do we build a wall," Marivel half murmurs and half sings, "My children, my children."
If there is an answer to that question, the possibility of a third way--Marivel doesn't share it herself. Maybe there isn't one, or maybe she doesn't think there is one, or she simply doesn't know what it is. None of that is particularly helpful, though.
"That's correct," Marivel agrees with Avrirl's summation. "It's a true gordion's knot, no?"
She bites into her doughnut, munching for a bit. "Very well. You must." Marivel closes her eyes a moment, weighing something, but shortly adds, "Then I should probably mention that there is someone who is interested in helping you remember. You know her I believe? Kaguya? I know not her plan but I felt you deserved some warning."
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Sometimes there is no third way. There is just the least-bad way. Avril has already seen such play out before her very eyes, and heard of other tales--
For instance, one could take Cecilia Adlehyde's surrender of the Teardrop as a least-bad way: her options were to hand over a powerful item invaders were demanding, or to permit the wholesale destruction and death of her kingdom and subjects. She chose the former.
Then there is Avril's own situation. By shirking the throne, she is permitting her people to continue on as a threat to the world. But to take it would be to thrust herself into a perilous and uncertain outcome.
Sometimes there is no third way. But for those times when another option is available, ah...
She must. And she intends to.
Even if she wants to hesitate, only a few days more.
There was a story she'd heard, about a small town called Honeysday...
One more day. One more day, and she'll say what she must say.
But here Marivel's reveal catches her both by surprise...
And not.
Kaguya had made her interest plain. That was undeniable. Yet...
"To help me remember... I wonder if that might be possible..." She bows her head, as if to dwell on that thought in silence.
Then, at length: "Thank you, Marivel. I will... consider her offer."
<Pose Tracker> Marivel Armitage has posed.
Marivel despite passing on this message has her own conflicted thoughts on the matter. The past rarely allows itself to remain buried. Oh perhaps it might be hidden for centuries, thousands of years even, but eventually people return to Fila del Fia and learn shocking truths and there's countless ruins just like that one with their own whispers looking for receptive ears.
"Though if you do remember the past," Marivel says. "I pray you do not forget your present and future. You have good friends, Avril. Even if you haven't been with them for long... well, sometimes a few years means more than a thousand. That is a lesson I've had to learn time after time."
She takes another doughnut. "I really shouldn't be eating so many of these. But I just can't help myself."
She bows her own head back to Avril. One queen without a kingdom to another.
<Pose Tracker> Avril Vent Fleur has posed.
Avril is silent for a long moment.
"I do not intend to," is her answer in the end. It is not her intention to lose what she has now--
Though might it be that she will become transformed? Even should she hold fast to the present and stand to face her future, knowledge of the past affects both. One way or another, she will cease to be as the Avril she is now and become someone else.
But just who that someone will be, and what she will do...
"They are important to me. The precious memories I have formed since I met them both."
Her greatest treasure.
Maybe... that might be enough.
She cannot help but smile -- and giggle, if briefly -- when Marivel remarks then that she just can't help herself around the doughnuts.
"Perhaps that is not such a terrible thing. To eat something delicious..."
She leans back then, tilting her head up so she can see that arc of blue that is the sky.