sockpuppeting (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sockpuppeting) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
bakerstreet2014-03-09 09:51 pm
sockpuppeting) wrote in bakerstreet2014-03-09 09:51 pm
two ravens in an old oak tree
The Train to the Afterlife Meme
| Congratulations: You are dead. Maybe you know how, maybe you don't. Perhaps the memory is fuzzy, or perhaps it's crystal clear down to the look in your comrades' eyes. Maybe it was your time; you've done all you wanted to. Or maybe you weren't at all ready to go, maybe you went out kicking and screaming - but none of it matters. You know you're dead, and the train is taking you to an afterlife. Perhaps an afterlife of your choice; you might've earned that heaven. Or perhaps you've earned something else entirely. It'll be a bit of a journey, though, so you might as well take your time and talk to the other people in your coach. Death knows no place: most of them are strangers, even from faraway worlds. But death knows no time either, so who knows, some of them may be people you know, even if last you knew, they were alive - or long gone. Oh look, here comes the snack cart. |
Post your character (bonus points for a brief description of their death and/or appearance from it), and let others reply to you. You are both dead! How is up to you, whether it's AU or canon. Characters don't know where they're headed, they just have a vague awareness of going to some sort of afterlife. |
no subject
Lloyd looks like he's not sure what to say, but sits down with a slightly unhappy expression. on one hand, Zelos kind of betrayed them, on the other hand, he helped them in the end and... it's frustrating that he still doesn't understand him. ]
Zelos... Why?
no subject
...
he almost visibly twitches at the all but TOO familiar voice, but being the grand actor he is, manages to keep it down with a faint stiffening of his frame that an innocent idealist like lloyd is sure to miss.
and when he opens his pretty mouth to speak, it's, well.]
'Sup, Lloyd buddy! [sorry did you just ask him a serious question] Hey, do me a favor and please tell me you're just a figment of my imagination symbolizing the deep self-
deprecationexamination I should be undergoing about regret and atonement and yadda yadda. Y'know, that whole 'turn a new leaf before it's REALLY too late, rethink your life choices one last time!' package while you're still on the way to the ~Final Destination~ they never really mentioned anywhere.[zeloses will be zeloses, okay. HE HAS A SMOOTH VOICE. you like it. the whole party does!
--but point being:]
...You're not ACTUALLY here, right?
[because no really
YOU SHOULDN'T BE DEAD
and even if you were you shouldn't be stuck on the same ride as this scum. you too good for this, lloyd :(]
no subject
but don't mind him, he takes a moment to process all of that because what the hell Zelos. ]
Zelos. [ are you listening ] Shut up. [ yeah. ]
I'm really here, and I don't care about all that. I want to know why you did it. [ why didn't he have more faith in them, why didn't he just believe that together, they could do it? ]
no subject
--and wow HARSH?? To Lloyd's credit, the muscles on Zelos' face does twitch visibly as it breaks his usual grin crooked and off.]
Shouldn't you, as the idealistic leader of the merry band of dual world saviors who've staked everything to come so far? ["the", not "ours", because he's not part of it. not just since he decided he wasn't gonna do it, but long before that too, if zelos was to be honest with himself.
he was walking excess baggage from the start. just provided a convenient ticket to get to places, because hollow leverage from a hollow title is still leverage, and hey, you take what you can get.
(they weren't the problem.)]
What's gonna happen now? Who's gonna finish it all?
let's go with au where lloyd dies reviving the great seed o/
We already did. [ and for all his talk of sacrifice and the value of lives, the fact that in the end, he ended up being one... it's a sensitive topic. ]
Stop changing the topic! Why can't you just answer me? Why do you always have to be so frustrating?
sounds good! \o
Putting up a pretty face has always been something he's great at. Ultimately, it may well arguably be also the only thing that he was ever truly good at.
But there really wasn't any use for it in a place like this, huh? Lloyd wouldn't lie. He didn't need to. He was so determined, pure, idealistic, driven, good, that he'd probably keel over before he ever finds it in him to deceive others. (Funnily, "funnily", he did.) So Zelos DOES blink back once, dumbstruck, looking at Lloyd for a beat like he doesn't actually see him
before letting out a small and breathless sort of laugh, of mild disbelief, because look at him. Still ending up achieving what he's set out to do tooth and nail, having managed to claw his way to the top even if he ended up in such a sorry place with the last person he should want to see the face of again.
Incredible.
That's what all of them were. Lloyd and Colette especially, radiating a light so bright and blinding that the Chosen of Tethe'alla has never before dreamed possible, having been born in Meltokio nobility where corruption ran through every street corner and lies and manipulation are the cogwheels that kept the gold coins flowing.
How could he have ever fitted in?]
You really are something, aren't you.
[And that said, he sags back into his seat, chest heaving once as he leans his head against the leather headrest and a faint smirk fixes itself on his lips.
...
But right, closure's a thing. Let's... give that another shot, even if he really can't make any promises.]
So why does it matter? Sucks that you of all people wound up here too, but you got it done.
hngg zelos :c
[ even though from the beginning, Zelos only came with them because of a duty, Lloyd thought they'd become friends. after he was banished from the church, he stuck by them and helped them out, and said things that Lloyd refused to believe could be true if he was only spying on them the whole time.
they'd joked around and laughed together and had quiet moments and
there's betrayal and there's hurt, and even the tiniest shred of resentment but mostly, Lloyd just doesn't understand. even now, how could Zelos just keep pretending like nothing was wrong, like he'd planned for all of this to happen all along? ]
Why couldn't you believe in us? We could have stopped Mithos together... you could have lived!
lloyd you are too good to your shitty magic swordsmen. TOO GOOD
Why couldn't you believe in us?
He wonders.
What DOES Zelos Wilder believe in, anyway?
Hah, that's a pretty good question.]
It's not you and your friends, bud.
[His tone is casual and calm. Disturbingly serene even, maybe. The worn edge hinting towards an exhaustion that seeped deep through the bones and beyond, into the depths of him, would've been noted by the likes of Raine, Regal, and Kratos, but with Lloyd...
...Well, Lloyd's learning, and one of the (many) amazing things about him is the very fact that he can be surprisingly astute when people expect it least. The false gods know, that Zelos himself has been caught off-guard by it more than once.
He has a strange but distinct feeling, that something like that is gonna sneak on him one last time before they're through for good.
But until then? As clichéd as it sounds:]
It's not you.
["Sorry this ain't working out, sweet cheeks. It's not you, baby, it's me."]
why must all you magic swordsmen be traitors why
Lloyd doesn't believe that Zelos is the idiot that he presents himself as, just like he doesn't believe he betrayed them because he wanted an easy life. if he did, he wouldn't have gotten involved with any of them in the first place. ]
They were your friends too. [ his voice is even, matching Zelos', and he needs to say it. because whatever Zelos thinks, it was the truth.
they may not have always shown it, but deep down, everyone trusted him that he was doing the right thing. ]
what's a tales game without a traitor... or two, blame it on your failure of a father
[It HAS been fun. For all the yelling and slapping Sheena reserved just for him, all the snark he exchanged with Genis, the unspoken understanding of how things worked in Tethe'alla with Regal, picking up on an intelligent conversation with Raine here and there, and walking Presea through Meltokio just telling her stories - made up or otherwise, time was time.
As for Lloyd and Colette? Just their presences spoke for themselves.]
...Yeah, probably.
[Lacing his fingers to cushion the back of his own head, he wonders for a beat what it may have been like, if he was alive now.
The thought is dismissed with as quickly as it came. ...Bah, he's not gonna let Lloyd's optimism get to him, not now of all times, not after everything that's already happened.]
Like I said, it wasn't you guys. I just had my own agenda, different from yours, different from Cruxis', different from The Renegades', different from everyone else's. I acted on my own. Got that?
[And there's a bitter truth in that, just the fact of dissociating from Cruxis. He did buy Mithos time, fighting everyone else by the base of the Tower, but he didn't fight with an ounce of belief in what Cruxis wanted to accomplish. A small step, but better than nothing, right? Even if he was an easy nut to crack by any stretch of the imagination, Lloyd of all people still deserved way better, than having an old, sorry, and meaningless story dumped on his plate.]
who said you had to follow in his footsteps!!
in retrospect, that makes a lot of sense, but also makes no sense whatsoever. he's torn. ]
Then what was it? You helped Mithos take Colette away, but then you told us where to find her.
[ what did he gain in the end? why would he do any of that?
Lloyd shakes his head slowly. ]
I don't understand why you always pretend like you don't care about anyone else. [ because he can tell it's not true, he just knows it. Zelos might be a lot of things, but he isn't that.
when they fought at the Tower of Salvation... after travelling and fighting alongside him, he knows what Zelos was capable of, and even with the Cruxis Crystal, it didn't feel like Zelos had been trying. and when Kuchinawa had been about to kill Sheena, Zelos was the one who dragged her away to safety.
none of it added up to someone who only cared about himself. ]