Private ✪ Finweald And The Sky Was Red

[Yugam]

The man was quiet. His head nodded slowly, eyes suddenly seeming distant, as if he weren't really present. Most of the questions, they were easy to answer. The first, however. That was difficult. Not because the answer itself was hard to find, or the question incomprehensible, but rather because it touched on a matter extremely personal to him.

"I found out about the game from a friend who...passed. A long time ago, the first iteration, I believe." His eyes seemed to look for anything but the elf's face. The conversation was uncomfortable, but Ari did not shy away from discomfort. Not in the same way he used to at least. "Trouble is, I'd forgotten. Amnesia, due to oxygen deprivation. I just kinda...remembered one day. Started asking around, got a link from a friend. Didn't find out about the rest of it though until Red Fever." Ari shrugged. He died once, sure. Would he have been more cautious had he known the consequences? Sure. No point in passing blame around though. He was still here, for now. "Now, well, I'm wondering if this game is what did her in. And that's why I play. I need to know if what happened to her was 'cause of TS, and why."

@Rael

 

[Rael]

.

Silence was her reward to a question capable of striking a cord in his otherwise composed exterior, with no melody to follow through.

Rael wouldn't pressure him, but not even she could help the way her attentive gaze followed the curve of movement, looking out for the slightest hint of something that would give, expectant.

"My condolences for your loss," the elf said, the lilt of her voice turned to a softness unlike that which she carried with herself on most days, sympathy bleeding unto her tone and dripping from her tongue.

Sadly, his tale wasn't a novelty. Part of the tragedy of Terrasphere could be attributed to the hundred few who remained blissfully unaware of the truth of a world seeking to capture them at every turn, drooling and awaiting the perfect chance.

The other part was those left to wallow in the tragedy, bearing the burden of sharing testimony where it would not be heard, yet clutching onto that hope still. The hope that if they just warned enough people, then some would eventually listen and turn tail; that if they became strong enough, then they could prevent the loss of those who weren't sensible enough to heed those words.

"Have you given any thought to what comes after that answer? If it is a positive one, I mean. What will you do about it?"

​

---

@Yugam​

 

[Yugam]

It was funny how even well-meaning words, carried on a sweet voice, could still make someone bristle with annoyance and frustration. Yugam had quickly gotten sick of the never-ending platitudes over a loss he could no longer recall. Maybe part of the problem was that Yugam was angry at himself for not being able to remember. But some part of him would have hated those words anyways, he thought. He didn't need or want to pity and condolences of others.

Still, Yugam couldn't begrudge Rael. She could not know, and even if she did not know him, seemed at least the slightest bit sincere. "It's fine. Not like it was your fault or something," Yugam said, brusquely waving her consoling words, eager to move on.

"Have you given any thought to what comes after that answer? If it is a positive one, I mean. What will you do about it?"

For some reason, the question made Yugam want to laugh. What would he do? He could only smile amusedly, faintly. "Honestly? Not really. I wasn't planning on doing anything at all," he explained, almost on the verge of confusion. What could he do? What was the point of worrying about something outside of his control and long past set in stone. "It's not about doing anything. It's about knowing. I guess, after that, maybe I'll decide what's next, if anything at all, but for now...I just want answers."

@Rael

 

[Rael]

.

Eager to move on, he was. Sadly, he wasn't the one conducting the interview, and already had he agreed to her terms. Were it other circumstances, she would consider presenting herself as more apologetic for the bruises and wounds dug into his flesh by her words, but when she had already done him the kindness of a forewarning?

"There are some who, upon finding confirmation that this game caused real harm to people they knew outside of it, would look for a way to prevent further loss," Rael comments, flipping to a certain page as she pulls the grimoire closer to her lap, dragging a finger across the surface of her notes, then refocusing her wandering attentions to the huntsman. "You do not strike me as naive enough to believe a warning and a pat on the back, or a plea to protect, would do well enough to prevent that."

Flipping now to another page, the last date of a certain someone's log-in written underneath their name: "Others would quit. That would be the sensible portion of our populace - the forgotten names, and all the better for it."

More pages flipped, the variance of the depictions of others plain for him to see: "Others would rage. Swear to find the secrets and those responsible for bringing about this game and its cursed conflicts, then devote themselves to that purpose, in order to make them... Pay. Whatever that means."

A page that she seemed to linger on, if only for a moment, expression softening for a group of individuals most deserving of kindness: "Others who grieve, be it for themselves or others. This game is but the last tether of consciousness they hold, and those who know them, the last connection they can ever have to that person."

"Then, there are some who simply want to know." Like herself, who could not quite understand the motives even if they sat writ plainly upon the pages of her note, repeated thousands upon thousands of times by a different face each time. A quest never-ending, its purpose as unknown as the merit of her findings.

"And so on, and so on. Setting aside that this is but a brief overview of everyone else's reactions upon finding the truth of this game... Tell me. If I were to classify you into one of these groups, why do I think it would not be the last one?"

---

@Yugam​

 

[Yugam]

Yugam crossed his arms and leaned back into his chair again, sinking into it, as Rael began to talk about how most people tended to react to the game's potentially fatal nature. A slightly cocked brow indicated he wasn't quite sure where her line of questioning was going.

"You do not strike me as naive enough to believe a warning and a pat on the back, or a plea to protect, would do well enough to prevent that."
"You're right, I don't." She flipped through the pages of her notebook, moving on to talk about the 'sensible' population, and all the rest of them. There were many types of people who continued to play the game. At the end of the day, they were all a little bit insane. They had to be, in their own ways.

"Tell me. If I were to classify you into one of these groups, why do I think it would not be the last one?" Yugam hesitated at saying the first answer the leapt into his mind. He wanted to say she thought he was looking for vengeance, or something more impassioned people might do. But she also knew of his marred memory. That in mind, it still seemed in some ways that he should've fit into the 'simply knowing' category, were it not for the inclusion of one more classification.

"If I had to take a guess, you think I'm grieving," Yugam answered. "Am I right?"

@Rael

 

[Rael]

.

"Like I said, this is but a brief overview. It does not account for every single one. Were I to try and put everyone in a box, I would be left wanting for more boxes than people."

"I do think you grieve," higher goes the lilt of her voice, appreciation for the appropriate guess inlaid in those simple words. "Though not for your friend, and not for the reasons I stated."

An awfully insensitive thing to say to a stranger who has bared a piece of consciousness and heart to someone whom they've just met, yet that is the way she chooses to react - and she is not any bolder for it.

Curiosity is her greatest strength and greatest flaw yet. She is but a puppet at the disposal of the threads of theory and imagination ever circling one another through her mind, ravenous to collect and turn every facet of every rumor or whisper until all of it has been unraveled, laid bare.

Greed.

"I think you grieve for yourself, first and foremost. Though there is love for your friend - their memory, it is but an instrument at present. No, to be more precise, it is a connection to your past self. This game is another. Together, this game is but the obstacle between regaining that which you've lost, and your friend the precious memory that safeguards that secret.

You want to know them, because in so doing, you may just recover the you that has been lost. And the not knowing... It's the worst outcome, and it is where you stand."

She waves a hand, dismissing her own thoughts, even when she has yet to hear his opinion on it.

---

@Yugam​

 

[Yugam]

There was a small huff of amusement at the discrepancy between the boxes and the people that quickly fell away into the same seemingly dissatisfied face the man always wore. Still, he listened attentively, the man's gaze only drifting when a particularly loud laugh cut the air. Even then, his eyes flicked quickly back to the pink haired elf sitting across from him.

He did not disagree or recoil from the elf's words. Merely listened until it became clear that she had said her piece. "You may very well be right," Yugam admitted. "If only because I hate not knowing." He was unsure of his unknown friend from days gone by merely being a tool, but all the same, in knowing who she was, there was a chance Yugam, Ari, would learn something of himself. "But I might learn nothing at all. Even if I learn about her, this game was disconnected with me. I never played it, or at least as far as I know." More so musing than any direct answer, Yugam's words were still purposeful. "That wouldn't be the worst outcome though, I suppose."

@Rael

 

[Rael]

.

"Kind of you to listen to my assessment," a compliment given in earnest, dripping in an honesty that when contrasted to her unchanging exterior might as well be likened to sarcasm.

His distraction, his pauses, his measured breaths, and answers give her ample time for her to continue writing the page that details information on his person. Her observations, his answers, and the conviction - or lack thereof - with which he pronounces them. His journey. The hero's journey. "If it helps you... No, if it serves as consolation, I will be praying that for both our sakes, you do find the answer to that unknown question that sits somewhere in that mind of yours."

Her quill is pointed at him, the feather waved once, and twice. "I am not in the business of offering unsolicited advice... Tales of all sorts are under my purview, and that does include tragedies. My mission is to record them, not influence them."

"That said... Even if it serves no purpose related to your search for answers, find yourself in the trivial and in the small things. Your heart's desire will lead you astray, do not believe anyone that says otherwise, but it is in following it that you may yet find clues of yourself.

And I shall be ever interested to listen and record every bit of it."

---

@Yugam​