Adar's 'Apology' [9/27] Angery

[18:51] Ardith trudges up to her home with a load of lumber under one arm. She stops to glare absolute murder on Adar. A shame that the effect is probably lost on him.
(Ardith Hirai)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[18:57] Adar says, "Hi."
[18:58] Ardith Hirai asks, "...Fuck're ya on my lawn for?"
[18:59] Adar is just kind of sitting there. "I was waiting for you to come. I brought some nice tea."
(Adar)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[19:00] Adar says, "I guess I owe you an apology."
[19:00] Adar says, "Well, guess... I -know- I owe you an apology."
[19:00] Ardith grunts and gives the magi a look of undisguised incredulity. Again. It's probably lost on him.
(Ardith Hirai)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[19:01] Adar is blind, yes.
(Adar)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[19:34] An interval of pensive silence takes place as Adar revises his routine. Most of it had become a blur, even in spite of it's obsessive planning up until mere minutes before the accursed had arrived. Clearing his throat subtly, he'd start off on whatever note felt right:

"We have a lot in common. I keep realizing it more and more every time." He sounds apologetic, as if all undoings had been his. "We're both headstrong, so much so that it brings us to painful scenarios. Ones no one would simply waltz into knowingly."

The navigator, in spite of their point of contention, did not necessarily see the exchange as potentially hostile.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is… I didn't mean to collide with you earlier. I just wanted to cool you off, but my attempt backfired."

A pause takes place, Adar seems to sulk for a solid dozen seconds. His theoretical gaze would be stuck somewhere between blades of grass.

"I tried to take you home afterwards, but Famfrit cut me off." A small disapproving wince. "I couldn't trust him with you. I feared it. Not after what he had tried to do with others I care for." Back then, he wouldn't have a clue. "So I fought him. Hard. Fought to the point I could no longer think, move, sense or feel at all."

Stopping altogether, the silence of the moist, gloomy atmosphere that'd loom above the dreadwoods would function as the sole padding of the navigator's serene breathing.

"Is he gone, Ardie?" A bereaved, condolent timbre seemed to sincere itself among his monotonal mouthing. "I didn't mean to be rude at the square earlier. I hadn't… thought about it."

A halted shake of his head.

"I'm sorry."
(Adar)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[19:56] The Accursed grimaces. Thinking of the two having anything in common. She considers it, unsure how to feel about the notion.

"Not a great fuckin' attempt," she grumbles, setting aside the bundle of logs and taking a seat. Things could have been worse. They could have been better too.

Finally, Adar explains. He fills in the gaps.

The ones she wanted filled in months ago. She glares at him, jaw clenching, and even though he's blind? He can probably feel the anger washing off of her in great, violence-inducing waves.

"...Then why didn't you fuckin' tell me?" she snarls.

"I didn't fuckin' know. I just woke up with my head splittin'-"

Ardith cuts herself off again. Speaking of headaches, she can feel another migraine building and threatening to split her skull.

"He told me you'd been actin' funny...like the occult crazy had gotten a hold of you."

No one is immune to it that uses it. She knows that damn well, especially given her outbursts that have only gotten worse and more frequent and all too easily brought to the fore.

There was a time when she might have felt a wave of sorrow as he asks, when she would have been overcome with melancholy and the sensation of loss.

Instead there's that anger again, a bright coal in her belly that is fed by her emotions towards the fallen man. A traitor. A blight. A waste of time.

"Yeah. Yeah, he's fuckin' dead. Gone. Didn't lift a finger to save himself. Caira? She's practically fuckin' gone too, and no one here lifted a finger to save her either."

Gods, this place. She hates this place, this city and these people that don't want to be helped.
(Ardith Hirai)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[20:37] "No! That was not it!" Bold. "Famfrit's the one who's scooped low. He wouldn't explain himself! Attacked me - hurt me gravely, talked of you as if you were nothing but prey! He's a chaos magi, Ardith!"

"I couldn't face you after my defeat - I was sulking. Failing at trying to save anyone around me." There's a poignant gesture of strain in his face, as if the sheer recollection brought upon him the looming sensation of impotence, clouding him from any grace or ease in being. "The children from Levengard. You. Lea."

And to think these names were just a handful of the recent ones. Caira, Keitaro, Tobias, Rindou, Reito… the whole list would have been brutal to sit through. He'd shake his head, in an attempt to make the blur of fictional stimuli clear off from the momentum.

"I was angry, powerless, paranoid." In some ways, he still was. In others, he would forever be. "I couldn't ransom them out. I couldn't come up with an alternative to Cordelia having to surrender herself. I couldn't spare the guts to immolate myself with Sors, Malentine, Cruor and company. I couldn't keep his… wretched claws off you. Carelessly allowed the Helheim archfiend to escape my watch… I wasn't even able to stop Yin from going rogue…!"

He'd curse himself internally, fighting off the unwavering impulse of wanting to rip off his own skin.

"Seeing you two together made me so helpless…! I couldn't help but to think I had been played. Set up, made a fool out of!" A smug, self-loathing, enervated snort would burst out from his thin nostrils, as if to openly mock his own weakness. "I didn't know how else to react. So I ran, cut you off."

Then again, this wasn't about him. It should never be, it was not meant to.

"I'm sorry, Ardie. I really am. Do know I'm here for you - I've always wanted to be, even if I couldn't bring myself to. Perhaps I've failed you, but do know: I care for you very deeply! After everything we've accomplished… I wish naught to let our bond wither."

The blindfolded man sounded both submissive and committed.

"Even if Eshmun has allowed his last embers to wash away, the fact that you gave his child the bliss to be held in his arms back is miraculous - biblical, even." An interval of sheer quietude. "A whole six years… he was already dead, Ardie. You're a genius."
(Adar)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[20:40] Adar says, "The fact that he was ever back to begin with should be looked upon with bliss. There was no guarantee that his stay could've been prol0ngued safely."
[20:53] Adar is very good at one thing these days. That is making her absolutely furious. In fairness, so much makes her angry. The list of things that didn't is probably shorter.

"I wasn't tryin' to make a fool out of anyone. Why the fuck would ya think that!? Fritz was the only one who explained anythin' to me. Fuckin' period. And one of the only ones who doesn't look at me like I'm some fuckin' BLIGHT on this place!"

She's seen their whispers, their sideways glances, the sneers. No one had wanted to intervene or speak on her behalf when Sho began to disrespect her, slinging threats. All he has done.

No respect, no gratitude. Nothing.

Chaos Magi or not, the Wolf had filled a void in her life that had been left by the absence of a best friend, of a loving husband, and a caring community. Gehenna as a whole turned her away, but he'd been there with welcome arms.

"Yeah...Yeah, I'm fuckin' brilliant. You're righ'. And I wanna' do so much. I done so much. I helped a man come back to life hold his child. Helped foggy-eyed dryads with weak limbs walk n' find strength. I made it so Caira wouldn't fuckin' suffer and brought back word 'bout her here.

"That's gotten me jack SHIT, Adar! Nothin' but pithy fuckin' words!"

Ardith oozes a continually mounting fury that bleeds into the very air around her. Angels and their arrogance tear the world asunder in their greed and find nothing but rewards.

But what of her? What of her payment? Is this it?...
(Ardith Hirai)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[21:17] "Then, that just makes two of us. Huh?"

There's nothing but clear, bleak silence. Like there'd be nowhere else for him to be. He'd only quietly weave through the thoughts, afterwards. Famfrit, to whom he'd for years look upon as the closest he had ever had to a father figure, had once sheltered him under his wing when no one else would. Shielding him from freezing death, starvation, aversion, persecution. Yet, this was no longer the same man.

Pushing himself above and beyond the limits of reason within sacrifice for the wealth and wellbeing of others had brought him nothing but adverse circumstances. Stalwartly crusading their ambitions, seeing them through. Bringing Eshmun back, navigating the spire expeditions, making the lighthouse fly, blessing it's telescope, retrieving Ikkaku Ukitake's famed staff, fighting - saving - helping, learning, teaching…

There was clear defeat in the atmosphere. He had explained, but to vent was above and beyond him. Naught more could be said.

The world had just grown one shade darker.

Instinctively, he'd reach behind his cape, revealing a seemingly antique pocket watch, only for it to be held idly between his pale, lanky fingers. It's incessant ticking was vaguely recomforting, yet the time of day was now a foreign concept.

"I guess these are the just desserts for me. Naught more."

He'd listlessly stand up once more, incapable of once more facing the accursed.

"I deserve it. Don't I?" In rhetorical swagger. All of the blame in the world had found it's way around him, suddenly filling the air with a larger-than-life feeling of misery. Even the likes of Ardith would find the stench bizarrely out of place. "Perhaps it's not worth it, after all. I've well earned your disgust after all."

Pity.

Was this vague halo of limp, courage-draining bliss the presence of a sin?

Poor. Poor Adar.

Retreating, he wouldn't even bring himself to spare a wave. His lackadaisicalness had overcome him.
(Adar)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[21:32] In her fury she had not meant to make a friend languish in his defeat. It's much like before. Of course she is angry; a village that did not favor her, all her friends blinking out of existence, dying or-

...Leaving. Leaving just as Adar does now. At first his words made her feel a kindred spirit. Another spurned soul. Then she comes back to reality. There is no other soul that will understand her. There are no true and lasting allies.

He makes to leave.

Just as they all do. Turning their backs to her. Rolling over, accepting defeat.

Oh, oh how it makes her angry. The inaction, the stagnation. It happens to all those who extend branches of friendship to her eventually. The branches wither, and die, and they turn their backs to her.

Keitaro had. Kabu had. Eshmun had. Caira. All her 'friends' and 'allies'.

Now Adar too. A telepathic howl echoes in his head, reverberating too in the air through use of occult-tinged sound magic. Already she unslings the book from her hip. A gust of wind opens the cover of the tome and the eldritch sigils eerily light her gaunt face

"DON'T YOU TURN YOUR FUCKIN' BACK ON ME!"
(Ardith Hirai)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[22:26] He stopped immediately, freezing in place, hovering limply above the accursed's lawn. The dim, unbearably forceless lighting of the dreadwoods would vaguely coat his severe, lifeless expression, as well as his limp, lackadaisical floating outline.

Grimly floating on his axis to once more face Ardith, Adar would merely remain idle, silently either awaiting further explanation or anticipating a concise response from himself.

Neither would come. Yet, he'd simply stare in his own way. Perhaps prod. Perhaps merely await.

"And what will you do if I don't turn my back?" A genuine question, though not a bewildered one. Like it had already been answered somehow. "What can I even do for you?"

The navigator's bleak thoughts had surfaced, waving themselves around in plain sight, for them all to be admired and spectated upon. Comfort, hiding, aversion, seclusion, escape. A choreography worthy of the worst impulses of fear.

"I'm incapable of helping you, aren't I? I came, trying to give it a last ditch effort." Starkly, he'd pause to weigh in her state of thought. "But here you are, further aching. And I've successfully made things worse for you once more."

The loathing would make itself as dense as poison.

"Would you have me stay here just to kill me?" He'd sigh. "Is my pain not enough for you, Ardith?"
(Adar)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[22:37] He is fantastic at making things worse. Coming here, stirring up her anger, and now exuding that palpable sense of complete and unmistakable loathing. It clashes with her intense fury, two completely different, preternatural forces. Oil and water.

Can anyone or anything bring her comfort in this state?...

And just like that, she spies Famfrit loitering by her fence.

She spits and snarls at the floating magi.

"You. You're fuckin' useless. You can't help? Then fuckin' leave. Go back to your other 'friends'. 'Don't want our bonds to wither' my fuzzy backside.

"Go where ya belong. With all the other fuckin' cattle, Adar."

Ardith does want to escape, which is a terrible feeling to have in one's own home. It mixes strangely with her desire to do terrible harm to the source of her anguish. Rip, tear, then flee to some dark, far-off hole.

Truly. That would be best.

"If ya don't. Then fine...I'll beat ya fuckin' senseless and break your fuckin' teeth on my lawn if you're just gonna float there. Maybe THAT can make me feel better."

(Ardith Hirai)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[22:54] With the same amount of bore and rotten heartedness that had characterized his unearthly haze-cloud of lethargy, Adar allowed the fine, antique pocket watch to slide from his slender, languid fingers.

It'd hit the ground with an unmistakable metallic thud. Yet, it's incessant, steady click would metronome past the frivolous silence of the interaction.

What other cattle did she even think she could ever hope to refer to? How could she ever hope to try and get a feel for what an interaction with the outside meant to Adar? The unnerving, unbearable bombardment of stimuli; the grotesque panic of feeling intruded and aggressed; the guilt; the distress; the unhinging drive of submission.

Fuck you.Fuck you to hell and back, Ardith.Fuck you.I hate you. I hate your guts.I hate everything your hysteria stands for.Right now, I hate you with every inch of my red, beating heart.

A fuse.

Tic-toc… tic-toc… tic-toc…

The blind man would once again pivot his face to the side, merely to regard the laughing wolf's presence with a vague turning motion, finally bouncing his face back at her clear point of presence.

The eerie quietude had run it's time.

With a sharp, absurdly abrupt stomp of his heel, the unbearably tense clicking of the antique watch would come to it's end.

"Farewell."

Thus, once more having proven himself right in misery, Adar saw through the opportunity to leave.

It was now time to hurt.
(Adar)