IC INBOX - PHANRIFT

[founderinglight]

one for sorrow, two for mirth
three for marriage, four for birth
five for the truth and six for lying
seven for sickness, eight for dying
nine for silver, ten for gold
eleven for a secret that shall never be told
twelve for the moon, thirteen for the sky
fourteen for the accursed unable to die
and fifteen for my heart's last desire
a new day's dawn, reborn in fire



Izunia Lucis Caelum
Keystone Station Room #11
Network @elevencrows

Comments

[motherfucking_ghost]

So.

[That Church is willingly approaching Izunia at all is still a shock, honestly. He's got paper and a pencil and looks pretty serious, almost solemn.]

Anger rating chart thing?

[founderinglight]

[Izunia, for his part, seems surprised to be approached as he's killing time, presumably waiting for whatever's in the oven at the moment.]

Oh - well, why not. I've nothing pressing at the moment.

[motherfucking_ghost]

I mean, we can talk about other stuff, too, not just...chart thing. Uh.

One to ten, or like, one to five? You're gonna be the better thesaurus for words anyway.

[founderinglight]

Ten is what I believe you suggested earlier.

[Don't mind him getting out his own pen and paper.]

[motherfucking_ghost]

With ten being like...your version of hate or like, apoplectic, and one being like I love you like a brother? Orrrrr less extreme?

[founderinglight]

Ten more on the apocalypse end, zero being no anger? Love is a separate scale, at least if you ask me.

[Emotions are complex things.]

[motherfucking_ghost]

I'd argue your version of hate is pretty apocalyptic, but so noted. [He jots down the scale itself and labels 1, tentatively but pretty obviously, no anger.]

[founderinglight]

No argument there.

[It's quite literally that.]

Five is probably about the tipping point of lashing out, then, do you think?

[motherfucking_ghost]

[He taps his pencil on his chin.] ...I think that depends on how we define lashing out.

[founderinglight]

True enough. Yours certainly looks different from mine.

[He hums thoughtfully, twirling his own pen.]

More than passive aggressive comments, less than a full yelling session? So somewhere around a snap.

[motherfucking_ghost]

[Jots 5 down as 'snappy' for now.] So call a yelling like...7? 6 seems too big a jump but I'm also not sure what comes between snapping and...yelling. [Recall that his problem was that he wasn't sure he could see so many steps in anger.]

[founderinglight]

No, seven sounds about right. It doesn't have to be perfect.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Right. Okay. Maybe call 3 like...vague annoyance? Like, 'I am annoyed with you but I cannot specify-slash-articulate what it is yet'?

[founderinglight]

Works for me. That's about it, isn't it?

[motherfucking_ghost]

Uh--I guess so, yeah. The numbers in between can be implied on the scale.

[founderinglight]

Excellent.

[Don't mind him setting his pen down to stretch his fingers a minute before starting to scribble down his own copy, just in case.

There are emoji on it. Maybe Prompto has unleashed a monster.]

[motherfucking_ghost]

...Good.

[He seems surprised this went as quickly and easily as it did.]

And, uh. One more thing. Just. Look. I'm already making an effort to be nicer to you, and I'm not gonna, like, add on top of that. I'm observing one of my holidays before the party and shit, even though it's way out of date it's important. It's a holy time revolving around repentance and asking forgiveness. ...Usually, primarily, we're talking about repenting sins and asking God for forgiveness.

But I...also use it as a time to try and forgive and ask forgiveness of others.

...I'm never gonna forgive you for what you did to Ardyn. There is literally nothing that can be said or done to make up for it. But. I've been a colossal dickbag to you on the basis of spotty memory and unreliable narration alone. Which is...[man his jaw sure is tight and looks like he's this close to gnashing his teeth] unfair. Of me. When you've done nothing but try to be nice to me in your own weird way.

[founderinglight]

[Izunia is silent for a good long moment, the kind of silent where you can tell that he's thinking something, very hard.]

...I won't pretend that you being an ass doesn't matter, because it does. I don't know yet how I feel about forgiving that. If you have a problem letting your temper run away with you, then mine is locking mine away and pretending it doesn't happen.

I won't pretend that it hasn't hurt. But I think that... I want to see the better person that I know is there.

So I'm not going to make a decision one way or the other about it. I want to see what you do from here on, and that will determine if I forgive it or not.

[motherfucking_ghost]

If I'm honest here? I like that response a lot better than if you had just up and forgiven me without a second thought.

[founderinglight]

[Then they're on the same page for once.]

Love is unconditional, forgiveness is complicated.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Love's also complicated, even the unconditional kind.

[founderinglight]

True enough. But it's easier to have a guideline with it.

[motherfucking_ghost]

I'm not making a love scale to go along with the angry scale.

[founderinglight]

[A chuckle.]

Not that kind of guideline, don't worry.