recolle | [closed] justin timberlake meme approaching

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[closed] justin timberlake meme approaching

WHO: The Geteilt "Sisters"
WHERE: Lina's home
WHEN: April 30th
WHAT: With the new month on the horizon, four orphans regroup to discuss the miserable disaster they're living and hopefully not talk about the whole killing each other thing. Can also just be an end-of-the month family catchall? Whatever. Drakengard threads in here.
WARNINGS: Rose and Jasmine will probably cuss at each other

[Lina's house is neutral ground, always has been. On the rare occasions everyone can be herded together into one place, there are few venues where everyone can be expected to be on their best behavior. Jasmine's might act as a safe haven most of the time, but the old grudges still chafe at it. There are some settings where all of the family feuds don't need to be fought, if only for an hour or two.

Jasmine sits with the others at the table, her own plate of brownies a peace offering next to Lina's usual spread of snacks. She sighs and begins slowly.]

We're all in one piece, still, it seems. [More or less. She knows the past few weeks have been difficult. In some ways, it's probably a good thing for Lina to experience all the ugly things that come along with being aware of the app instead of getting lulled into a false sense of security. They all know how bad it can get, now, for whatever it's worth, as much as she would have liked to protect them all from it, too.]

If patterns hold, which I don't doubt they will. we'll be hearing from that corporation again tomorrow. We should probably talk now.

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[ More or less, Clover is in one piece. Having a couple Persona protags with healing abilities on a quest and a new physiological resilience helps with that. Even if she knows Lina will likely have more than enough food to go around, she still brings a fruit salad to share.

She's done enough hiding and avoiding in March and April combined that while pure honesty is still difficult, she is trying to make a more concentrated effort to be honest. Her biggest worry is that Lina is still so new to Retrospec. She doesn't want to introduce the topic of sororicide so soon if she's been lucky enough to have more innocent memories.

It may be inevitable, but prolonging it is what she hopes to do, for herself and the other sisters. That's a less honest thought train, but to Clover, all the Intoners are as horrible as the soldiers cursing Four declare. ]

What precisely do you want to go over? What you think Retrospec will do or something else?

[ Trying to make her tone and expression very, very neutral and not like she could bolt at any time. ]

[More than anything, Rose is immensely relieved to see them all in person, all alive and unharmed. It's been a while since she's seen a lot of them, even if there are plenty of reasons for all of that too. Some excusable, some not so excusable. Maybe trying to avoid talking about it is the same as running, but she's not picky on that. Who wouldn't want to run away from the fact that she—Zero—tried to kill all her sisters?

Still. Ignorance is dangerous, that much she's sure of. She wants them all to be as ready as they can be for... Whatever comes. Whatever happens. So here she is, willing to try and talk, but only about so much. Her offering consists of a batch of cheerily-decorated cupcakes, bought from a nearby bakery, although she looks anything but.]

There's a lot we could talk about with just the former.

[it's been too long since Lina has been able to see everybody here. or, at least, everybody who's been affected by the app and who has... so many things coming up in their future. fights. madness, if Clover's actions in Pesgare were an indication of anything. she doesn't even know what Jasmine might be dealing with.]

[it's why she put so much effort into cleaning her house up, into putting together crudités, into making sure the four of them felt comfortable and that they could speak their minds and have a reasonable discussion like the adults they all are. she's sitting in a place where she can keep her eye on all three of them and intervene if necessary, in a chair slightly off to the side but still part of this whole discussion.]

I'm the newest one to the app, so I should probably get everybody up to speed with what Retrospec has made me remember, in case it means anything to you. Then we can decide what we want to talk about specifically. [she straightens her back.] It isn't much yet, but I remember taking care of orphans in a city, and I remember a dragon named Michael.

[her eyes scan the room for her sisters' expressions as she drops the name. it feels important in her mind, but she could be blowing it out of proportion.]

[Jasmine's face remains serious. She doesn't seem shocked about anything that Lina has to say, either. If anything, it's Rose's gaze that she refuses to meet.]

Dragons, huh... [She had hoped, even as she recognized so many of her sisters of time in her dreams, that she might have just been substituting familiar faces every time.

She hopes that every day, every week, every month, because the alternative is worse. The alternative is that some of them might have to die.]

There are dragons in my memories as well. Gabriella...

[It feels strange to speak her name, as if she's been denying it a while and still wants to keep that a secret.]

[ Clover doesn't remember a dragon by either of those names. Of course, she doesn't remember the name of the dragon she has seen. Is that a good or a bad thing, she wonders? (That's a silly question because nothing in her memories has ever been good. Even winning or gaining something is at the expense of something else.)

She hesitates. ]

I... have seen one dragon, but I don't know a name. [ She doesn't really expand on it because her memory with Mikhail involves death threats. ] I don't remember any orphans either. Only... fighting soldiers and.... others.

[ She was told to get it all out in the open with her sisters, but it's hard. She's trying her best for full honesty, but it's hard. It's like pulling teeth. ]

[There's something so strange about hearing Michael's name from Lina, she can't stop herself from being a little surprised. It seems silly to think that a dragon of all things was so important to Zero, but he was. She doesn't know how, but he was, and hearing his name from Lina's voice when she knows he was trying to help her kill them all seems bizarrely ironic.]

I've seen some too, yeah. Michael, Mikhail... [Her gaze flickers briefly over to Jasmine before she looks back steadfastly at the center of the table.] Gabriel.

[She doesn't know anything about a Gabriella. Then again, from what she remembers Zero saying, she's not entirely sure Gabriel even was a dragon.]

[something in these names, Lina feels, should be stirring deeper recognition. something more important than the obvious connection that she's going to say out loud in a second, like it hasn't already hit everybody else months ago.]

Angels—archangels. They're named after archangels. [to her right, Michael, and Gabriel to her left... ha. she'd be smiling if it weren't so serious. she turns her head toward Jasmine and Rose in turn.] Gabriel interprets the word of God. Michael slew the Assyrians.

[and it seems to hit her that she's probably the only person for whom this is new information. it's not really useful, either, is it?]

Sorry. I know you all looked this up already.

[Gabriel-- It makes her turn her head to look at Rose, no matter how hard she's been resisting it up until now. That doesn't sound right, sounds like some weird incongruity. She knows she didn't hear it wrong, though. Maybe there are two of them. Or three, counting Michael, the dragon she hardly knows, the one who was not friend but certainly foe. The surprise on her face might not be the deep recognition her sister wants to see, but it's the biggest emotional response she's put off yet.]

No, Lina. It's good that you're looking for yourself. You don't need us to tell you what to do.

[Then she sighs.] But from what I can tell, God would have abandoned that world a long time ago.

[ Clover, who has rejected almost every memory she's received, presses her lips together. Are "angels" on their side or against them?

She could laugh. Are they God's messengers or are they given those names to be given purpose? ]

I don't know. I doubt we'd be part of some religion even if we had some sort of cause to fight for. This naming scheme could be a misnomer.

[ What part of that world could be justified? ]

[She's not sure what exactly she was expecting to see from Jasmine, but it's confusing all the same. Gabriella and Gabriel. It can't just be a coincidence that the names are so similar. Then again, it's not like she knows why Michael and Mikhail's names were so similar either, why they almost looked the same too.]

... I remember hearing some people talk though. [She shifts in her seat, un-crossing her legs then re-crossing the other way. What she doesn't say is that she remembers people screaming for the Intoners' help while she slaughtered them.] They thought of you guys like goddesses.

["You guys." Zero was definitely never included among them.]

[goddesses... that's a little much for Lina. she believes it (she has no reason not to), but she can't reconcile the two. Lina's position shifts in her chair as she tries to process that.]

I'm not a goddess. I just write about food on the internet.

[but if they were goddesses, then the angels—the dragons named after angels were in service to them. that's how it works, right? (she's going to keep that thought to herself; she doesn't want to say something obvious in front of her sisters again.) the more she's learning, the more uncomfortable she's getting as the kind of person she's "supposed" to be matches up less and less with what she thinks about herself. and there's something else that doesn't sit right with her, the more she thinks about it.]

Is it just us? Why wouldn't they think you were a goddess, too, Rose?

[Because she's a traitor, Jasmine wants to snap automatically. Because she never did anything worth being thanked for. She bites it back, knowing that the minute she declares war against Rose, Zero will become Rose for real, and there's no going back from that.]

Of course, people believe things that aren't true all the time. [That man chained up in the cathedral, left to write a history that was only partially true, should be some testament to that.] I know we were fighting against injustice. Someone who protects them could look divine in their eyes.

Still, I'd like to hear the answer to that, too, Rose.

[ Clover closes her eyes. How could that much death equate to being goddesses unless they were goddesses of death? How just was their cause? If only she could remember more of the whys instead of only whats...

If the sisters are regarded as goddesses, it only stands to reason that ~~the one~~ Zero who's out to kill them would be the antithesis of that as an enemy. ]

We— They could do so many things considered out of this world. I suppose if they needed something to believe in, those superhuman abilities could qualify.

[ She doesn't need to hear Rose's answer to Lina's question. She doesn't want a fight to start. ]

Do any of you know what Intoners are?

[ She needs the answer to this question. ]

Because I was a piece of shit who didn't do anything worth being thanked for.

[Not that that's really changed all that much, she thinks. She shrugs casually, almost easily, but her gaze is focused solely on the table. It answers enough yet also nothing at all. That's all she's willing to give without getting the words dragged out of her though.]

I don't really know. [She feels like she should though. If One is right and Zero somehow made them, made her own sisters, shouldn't she?] They have magic singing and all sorts of weird powers, but that's all I know.

[Lina just shakes her head. she doesn't want to disagree with Rose, but she doesn't know enough. about anything. she just has to trust her sisters and their opinions on things while they all have so many more memories than she does. she's never heard of Intoners. she doesn't know about goddesses or singing or strange powers.]

[it's enough to depress a girl with how clearly over her head she's gotten. she struggles to find the right words.]

Like the strength that Clover was showing me. [which is a very generous choice of words.] At least some of these things sound useful. Like we can do some good here with them, too, and keep fighting injustice.

[like Jasmine had mentioned. even if she feels like the only one who thinks that's a smart option.]

It would be nice if that turns out to be the case.

[After some consideration, Jasmine reaches into her back and pulls out a carefully folded letter. (The last section, written three months later, isn't part of it.) She tries not to draw too much attention to the mention of Zero's treachery at the very beginning, instead focusing on what Lina's been saying.]

It seems that was the intention, at least for some of us. I didn't really know what to make of this when I got it, but it was clearly meant for others to read, so.

[She doesn't think it should be hidden from them anymore, not when they're all together.]

[ Clover carefully takes the letter from Jasmine and reads it. Tears well up in her eyes because the seven words mean they were trying to do good. Were they really not as terrible as Four seemed?

Were they really trying to save the world in truth, in actuality?

She can't read any disingenuousness in this. It seems too heartfelt.

She offers the letter up to anyone else who wants to read it. She knows why Zero is called traitorous and doesn't want to talk about it. ]

I want so much for this to be true.

[ Her words come out in a whisper, like a child wishing on a star. ]

[It was clearly meant for others to read, but not for Zero. Definitely not for her. Rose reads it regardless.

There should be a limit to how much you can hate a person, she thinks. Or yourself, in this case. She's never hated someone like she hates Zero, but she reads this letter, sees the love poured into every line, and all she can think about is how Zero felt nothing at trying to murder them all. If Zero read this letter, she would've laughed, and she hates that she even knows that.]

One loved her sisters. [And Zero didn't.] That much is true.

Edited 2018-05-20 10:14 (UTC)

[Lina's the last to read it and she... on one level she's glad she's apparently right. that Jasmine—One, apparently—cared enough to lay out the values not only for her and her sisters but for the places they ruled over. on another level, she's overwhelmed with how much new information is in this for her to process, and she takes her time carefully reading everything even as she expects conversation to continue around her.]

[on a third, terrible level, she catches the one adjective in the first paragraph about Zero, and she looks at Rose with a lot of the whites showing in her eyes. they don't just fight, do they. if One is so convinced that Zero is a traitor, and with the sincerity in the rest of this letter it's hard to think otherwise, then Zero kills them. or tries to, at least. and whichever one of them Lina is—it's hard to tell at this point—probably dies before One does, though that might just be her imagination running away from her.]

[this is all important information to have. it makes a lot of things just barely click into place, but raises more questions than Lina is even prepared to ask.]

That's not how this has to happen, though. Right? We all love each other and nobody is going to... [betray the family? ha. her question dies out as fast as the Intoner version of her probably did.]

[It's weird and hard to describe, the impulse she has suddenly to put herself in between two of her sisters,to keep one of them away from the other. It's fleeting, but for just a moment, Jasmine wonders if she should be trying to protect Lina from Rose. That's how frightened she looks for a moment.

It goes away.Jasmine takes a deep breath and focuses, and after that it's a little easier to keep her mind on what's happening around them.]

We don't have all the answers yet. [She takes her letter back as soon as she can, tucking it safely into the sleeve on an envelope and putting it away. Then, she lays her palms flat on the table.] It might be easier to start by answering questions about the powers we possessed, what led things to be that way.

[ She wipes away the few tears she shed. ]

We all love each other.

[ Clover is firm on that. If anyone tries to argue this point, she'll go ballistic.

She doesn't catch Jasmine's frightened look because she's still stuck on her own thoughts. How much in denial could she be? ]

I don't know much about where or how we got our powers or how they work, just memories of a few things we... they can do. Which is... a lot. Do we... Do they have any weaknesses? Do any of you remember? [ She hesitates. ] Four was... able to survive more than any ordinary human could.

[She catches the looks on both Lina's and Jasmine's faces and flinches, drops her gaze down again to avoid looking at anyone. Facing her sisters' anger, their disappointment, maybe even their hatred—that's easier. That's what she's used to. The idea that they might actually be afraid of her is like a knife to the gut.

Weaknesses though... Well, she has an idea, but. Even if she's sure that most of them know already, she's referred to what Zero's done as vaguely as possible for a reason. She doesn't want to have any connection to a monster who wants to kill her own sisters.]

If there's any kind of weakness, I think it has to be the dragons. There's a reason why we've all seen them. [There's a reason why she has a sword made out of dragon bone for fuck's sake. And given Zero's attitude, she can't imagine why she'd put up with Mikhail for any other reason aside from necessity.]

[Lina isn't afraid of her sisters, or at least not who they are now. (give it time.) she doesn't want to be afraid of them, either, and just forces herself to keep looking down at the floor, between her feet, away from them so she doesn't give anyone the wrong idea. but she also forces herself to listen.]

[and the idea that these dragons could be some way to stop the Intoners gives her... a burst of incredibly complicated emotions. if they all turn into people who would kill their own sisters without a second thought—no matter how prosperous their nations or adoring their people—then it's something she should be happy about, that there's a way to stop it. but they're still her sisters. they're still her family.]

[Lina starts to say something but finds her voice catching. when had her throat gotten so tight? she clears it and speaks up, trying to keep the shakiness out of her voice.]

Michael was firing some sort of beam from his mouth when I saw him in my memory. And I haven't seen them for myself yet, but I remembered Michael after someone told me that there were dragons in the outskirts of the city now.

[god, she hopes that information isn't useful. she hopes she regrets saying that like she's regretted saying everything else.]

Yes, my first memory of a dragon came from Minako mentioning hers. Though they seem very different, if what I've seen is any indicator.

[Gabriella seemed especially...opinionated. But One had liked her, well and truly, as contentious as their conversations had sometimes seemed.]

I'm sure there was some necessity behind it, but... I'm certain they also chose to work together. [They were friends, but she doesn't quite say it, feeling a little weird about that much. Her Brother was a secret from everyone but her, so One trusted her more than anyone else in some ways.]

Regardless, they were also involved in battle, whether as allies or as weapons. I'd really like to learn about the dragons we have here, if only to understand them a little better.

Do you really think the dragons that others on the application can help us understand more even if they aren't quite like the ones in our memories?

[ If so, she's ready to test that theory. Secretly. Selfishly. Like a coward.

It frightens her if she thinks about it harder, but perhaps now it's a necessity, like Jasmine says, like Rose thinks. Lina's memory more or less helps support the theory. Zero wouldn't use anything that wouldn't be effective against her sisters. It's an ugly and terrifying realization.

Her hands shake where she clutches them on her lap. ]

Four could summon one, too. [ Her voice is soft. ] Or maybe it's not quite a dragon. If it's summoned like that.

[ She won't mention how Four seemed like she lost her mind in that memory. ]

[She hums in thought.] It might not have been dragon, yeah. One summoned Gabriel too, but Zero called it a "daemon." Said it used to be a dragon.

[Whatever that means. She doesn't know what Four's dragon might've been like, but Gabriel definitely was odd in comparison to Michael and Mikhail. It didn't seem to have any intelligence. In that sense, it seemed less like working together and more like serving.]

Unless one any of them somehow end up here too though, [God forbid.] it's not like we have any other way to learn about dragons. Might as well give it a shot.

[daemons—so they can't be archangels, can they? just named after them. okay. that's one less complication that Lina has to worry about. now there's just everything else. Lina puffs out some air from her nose and straightens her back, finally feeling like she can contribute something.]

I can ask about dragons and let you all know what I find out. I'm the newest, so it'll make sense that I'm curious about all the new things that I'm still learning about.

[she doesn't like Rose suggesting that they "give it a shot" in the context of dragons being some sort of vulnerability or weakness. she doesn't know, though, how much theory can help right now when she doesn't even have enough to put it into practice. and who knows when she will?]

I just don't want anybody to hurt themselves if it turns out these dragons are the Intoners' weaknesses. And even if they aren't, they're still dragons. I didn't get brought into this to see you all in a rush to get hurt.

[she doesn't think her words will do much. she just doesn't understand, of course, how serious everything is. but she wants to let herself be heard. she has a voice and she needs to remember to use it.]

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[closed] justin timberlake meme approaching

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