week one; saturday, post trial w/ nico.

[wearys]

SATURDAY, post-trial.

[ well, that was a mess. a roller coaster of stupid if he ever saw one. he went from concern over reyna's hair, to over ann's hair, to ann being the culprit. honestly between the two, he'd thought reyna was more likely to kill someone than ann. that's what he gets for thinking.

tomorrow ann will be executed. it's as much justice as this place can manage. they'll find out what "happily ever after" means, and then maybe magnus will? die too? do they even know. he guesses they'll find out.

but nico can find him wherever, he's not exactly hiding. even though, like, he could now just become a sword and hide that way? ]

Comments

[resumed]

[Don't become a sword, Magnus. As it is, Nico's approaching him and appearing in the shadows just like usual, lurking a little before there's a very quiet:]

Magnus. [And a tilt of his head. He apparently wants to go somewhere else. Should Magnus follow, he'll find that Nico's heading to the armory.]

...you voted for Akechi after all?

[wearys]

[ a slight jump. what a hecking cat. magnus will follow, of course. ]

Yeah, I did. I did figure most people would be voting for Ann, though.

[resumed]

She did confess. And as much as I hate to say it, people raised a good point. There wasn't much in the way of evidence beyond Ann's testimony and Akechi's...whole...thing.

What do you think happens now?

[wearys]

Yeah, it's true. She was the right choice. I don't know if anyone deserves what they get here-- execution, murder, whatever-- since it's all up to them.

[ shrugs. ]

I don't know. I wish I did, but I guess... we find out whatever "happily ever after" means for Ann, if it's better or worse than the "to be continued" Sharpay got. And then whatever happens to me and the partners of the victims. [ pause ] Maybe it'll just be a pleasant tea party for everyone.

[resumed]

It's hard to say. [A soft sigh.] Some deaths are justified, but it's really a fine line between justice and vengeance.

....I don't think this is it though. You heard about what happened last week with Jae-Ha and Sousei right?

[wearys]

A really fine line. I guess it's that eye for an eye stuff, but it seems crappy.

They were spared, right? And it sounded like someone's special ability made it happen. If that's so, I guess we hope that that person likes Natsuo, Veronica or me enough to do it again, yeah?

[resumed]

Yes, exactly. That's what I'm hoping for anyway, whoever they are.

[...] I need to tell you something, but you can't think it's weird. And don't take it the wrong way that I'm telling you, but don't tell anyone else. Reyna already knows.

[wearys]

Me too.

[ magnus furrows his brow, in a "really?" kind of way. ] How weird? I've got a high tolerance, I'd say. Whatever it is, it's safe with me. Snitches get stitches, or so I hear.

[resumed]

Which is my objective, funny enough. [But he rolls right over that.] ...I made a wish on Monday. And I don't quite know how it all works, but I asked for a way to know how to protect people here. I think the well gave me back part of one of my abilities but it's broken.

...I can sort of tell when someone's in immediately danger, even if I don't understand what kind. Right now, I don't sense that with you. It's pretty faint.

[wearys]

Which is your what now? [ roll back over that nico hold on ]

That's... cool? I'm surprised it isn't just dinging off constantly, considering. But... thanks, that's comforting to know it's not dinging me that hard. And not that weird.

[resumed]

My objective. It's to sew up an injury...or sew up a murder weapon. Which is kind of hard when I don't know how to sew that well, but Will--[Annnd rolling back himself.] It doesn't matter, that's my object and that's that.

But it goes off mostly when someone's in a grave amount of danger. It kind of goes off when there's minimal danger, but that's easy enough to ignore. It's the rest I'm not sure what to make of it.

[wearys]

[ lucky for nico magnus assumes he was going to say "but will try" or something to that effect. magnus's belief that nico has a crush on reyna remains intact. ]

How do you sew up a murder weapon? Well, that's not too bad of an objective. People keep getting injured.

Maybe it'll help figure out who'll get murdered before they do? Not sure what good that'd do, but.

[resumed]

[Someday he'll stop being kind of weird about telling semi-strangers about his boyfriend. Today's not that day.]

I guess they mean like...I don't know, sew together a noose or something? That's the only thing I can think of and even saying it out loud sounds stupid. But you're right. People also keep doing stupid things here.

...if I can figure out how to use it, I might be able to warn them. That would help, wouldn't it?

[wearys]

See, I was imagining you sewing together like... a lacy pillowcase for an ax or something. Which definitely sounds stupider than a noose, so.

That could, yeah. At least stop them from getting murdered, which is always a good thing? Even if it prolongs this "war game" or whatever the heck.

[resumed]

It does sound stupid but at least it'd be less dangerous...unless you used the pillowcase to suffocate someone.

[...anyway.] I don't know if prolonging the game is better or worse than playing along and actively killing people. Look at where that's gotten us so far.

[wearys]

Make the pillowcase, put heavy ax in it, lay it on someone's face?

[ ANYWAY, ]

I don't know. I guess we won't know until later, when we're looking back and realizing we screwed up or something. I think not actively killing people would be an improvement, so far the letting people be killed thing has not... been great.

[resumed]

Death is really tricky. [He would know.] And as much as I hate to admit it, maybe some of these deaths are deaths we need to have occur in order to get somewhere.

[wearys]

That's an awful thing to hope for, but we don't have much choice. If we think about how much these deaths are, well, deaths, I think we'll just fall apart.

[ or he might, anyway. he runs both his hands through his too short hair, because, man.

death doesn't bother him so much as the violence of it, it's like clamming up on the battlefield on thursday morning in the hotel, even if he hasn't been near the violence yet. ]

[resumed]

I just wish I knew where they were going. All souls go to the Underworld to be sorted but I can't figure out where they're going here. That part of me's missing.

[wearys]

Depends on pantheon, right? Or something, not sure how they decide where normal people go. Maybe they go wherever they believe they go. Or maybe those goddesses are collecting the souls, like in that Scooby Doo movie.

[resumed]

...what Scooby Doo movie? [Tell him about the LA Scooby movie, Magnus. Do it.]

[wearys]

[ looks up into the abyss. deep breath. ]

Okay, so, in the like 2000s they made that live-action Scooby Doo movie with Sarah Michelle Gellar, other people, it was a whole thing. It was... maybe not great. Yeah, not great.

So, the Mystery inc gang gets hired to solve a mystery at this island theme park that's frequented by college kids and weird shit is happening. Yada yada, stupid hijinks, they find out that the park owner is literally stealing souls and replacing them with uh, demons, I guess in the living college kids.

There's literally a cauldron of soul heads. There's a whole chunk dedicated to the gang's souls going into the wrong bodies, Fred into Daphne, so on. Then, in the end, the mastermind was frickin' Scrappy Doo, but whatever.

Maybe there's a cauldron of the dead's souls somewhere, is my point. Just a bunch of ghosty heads in a bowl.