mooglenet_backup | [Video Calls + Action]

Current Location: Troia, Lindblum

Entry tags:

[Video Calls + Action]

[Lili is finally fully recovered and ready to set out after the journey to the Wind Shrine. She'll be wandering around Troia for a little bit. If anyone there would like to say hello, feel free to do so. She's slowly making her way to the airship docks.

In the meantime she also wants to call a few people to check in on them. So here's her list of calls (even though some of you probably don't keep your phones on you...):

○ Rishfee
○ Vincent
○ Excenmille
○ Mjrn
○ Angeal

So do your friend a favor and pick up! She's worried about all of you.

And, later, she'll be in Lindblum. And free to attack there, because she loves seeing people.]

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[She's probably right. Vincent first tucks his face behind the collar of the cloak, before answering in a low voice.]

I died.

You--

I see. Then that's probably the only way...

Why are they inside of you?

In this world. In my own, Chaos was removed differently. It was still dangerous. [He probably could have died in that, as well.]

[The next question makes him withdraw even more. It takes a moment. It's not something he's particularly inclined to tell people for no reason, and Lili isn't completely close enough for him to feel comfortable telling her. Still, she's seen the demons.]

A man called Hojo sealed them inside me.

I apologize for prying. But I had to know how similar our circumstances might be. If something happens... I wished to know what to tell Rishfee to do to me.

Is it painful to deal with them with you, even outside of battle?

Sometimes. They don't get much chance if I'm careful.

[He answers the question, yes, but he's not about to be distracted from the mentions she herself made.]

What do you need to tell Rishfee?

I told him to kill me when the time came.

Because I'll hurt people. Those I love especially. I--Maybe Rishfee told you about Odin, the Dark Divinity on our world? There were those in the East who revered him. But he forges pacts with those worthy of his power, and I--I inherited one of his pacts. From myself.

He hadn't.

[Perhaps she wouldn't have been believed by someone else. But Vincent doesn't discredit things just because they sound strange- after what happened to him, there's little that he can simply toss aside as sounding too strange to be true. Besides, Lilisette wouldn't have sought him out simply to lie about something so important.]

Inherited from yourself?

Well... They say Odin is akin to a god, but he-- He preys on the weak and the despairing. He fills them with rage and blood-lust until they forget even themselves. That thing has taken everything I've loved from me.

My father died when I was a child, from a wound he received before I was born. One day, several years later, I happened upon what we called Cavernous Maws, and was transported to the past. My parents were still alive, and my father was healthy and happy. I chose to stay in that time because I thought I could save him.

But I was unable, and Atomos, the devourer of time, began to eat the memories of those around me. They were fine, but they didn't remember me. Not even my father. I became distraught, and around the same time a woman named Lilith showed up. She wished for Atomos to devour the future I came from--the Vana'diel that birthed Rishfee and myself--so that her world could live on. And she wished to use my parents to help her.

I couldn't stand by and let her have them. To lose them again... But I lacked the strength and the power. In the end she summoned Odin thanks to the pact she had forged with him in her own time, and my parents chose to go with her. I failed them entirely, as a daughter and a friend, and I gave up. I let Atomos devour me.

I was revived by the one friend I had, and while I was gone I began to truly understand that Lilith was myself. A lonelier me from a harder life who had turned to the only power she could. When I was able, I went to her, and asked her to allow our worlds to exist, side by side. But she'd not hear it. As she lay dying she asked me to take up her place in her world, and I agreed. I took on the burden of her pact with Odin and said goodbye to my world not long before I came here.

But I didn't imagine the pact would hold. It has, though, and now I'm in danger of hurting others. If he takes me the difference between friend and foe won't matter. You'll be just another being that's in his way.

[Vincent listens in silence. It's a strange story, yes, and one that's nearly certain to be disbelieved. It's also different from both Rishfee's and his in many ways. But he doesn't interrupt, or ignore it, or disbelieve it.]

Odin and Chaos... are much the same.

Then I'm relieved you're free of him.

If Rishfee is unable to finish the job... Please stop me, Vincent.

[He nods.] If it comes to that, I will.

Thank you, Vincent. It means a lot.

Even if I have to go back someday, I'm very glad I was able to meet you.

If you're busy, don't let me keep you.

[He glances down toward her when she reaches out to touch him.]

It's fine.

[Then, in a rare moment of openness;]

I know what it means, to hurt those you care about. I'll do my best to keep it from happening.

I wish I had been there for you then. But if you need anything now, I'm here. Even just to listen, on the off chance you're in the mood for talking.

[He doesn't protest her grip on his hand for a little while, though he doesn't exactly acknowledge it, either.]

You don't need to burden yourself with my past.

I may not need to. But I want to. I won't press you. We're stuck on this world together now. There's plenty of time.

Maybe someday.

[But not now. Circumstances on this world have made him generally cautious about talking to other people about his history.]

You know how to find me.

Of course.

[Sky Phones are useful, of course. But he does tend to show up without warning.]

What are you doing out here? Lamiae, Kindred, Undead--I don't know how you and Rishfee stand it here.

[He shrugs, though it's mostly hidden under the cape.]

There are worse places.

[Let him tell you about the coffin sometime.]

Really?

In my world, it's a town called Nibelheim.

[If Lili's careful about how she asks, she might get the first piece of information about his past already.]

Nibelheim? The town itself or something within?

There was a house in that town, owned by the Shinra company.

[Can she see the aura of angst that's forming already?]

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