hello (heart)gamers. im here w some special guest stars

[finalbows]

WHO: all who dare enter angie's literal mind palace. it's OPEN HOUSE! no invites needed!
WHERE: in front of miku's salad (and yours)
WHEN: evening 73.

[ in the middle of running a perfectly innocuous miniquest, Angel Devil falls down.
His clothes have twisted away into bone-white rags, leaving a body covered over with only thick swathes of red fur, and downy feathers. His long tail is curled into a tense arc, banded fur standing on end.

The air wavers like he’s a heat mirage, not a man. He’s boiling away with absolutely stupid amounts of arcane power… and, most frighteningly, he does not seem in control of the fact that it is there and being brought to bear. It’s impossible to get any closer to him.


When he speaks, it’s quite timid. ]

Oh.
Oops.
...Thought I had... a little more time.

[ (and in a blinding flash of light, there is the sound of something breaking.) ]

~KRRSHHK~

[any observers will see, strangely see-through and superimposed on the scene, some kind of vast tree, illusionary roots twisting over and around to frame a door.  the door itself is wrought of opaque stained glass in blacks and whites and greys; a stylized rendition of Angie in that strangely ragged, feathered form, curled in on himself, eyes closed.  Angie himself is nowhere to be seen. ]

instead, a shadow . . . steps into view from behind the door.  for a moment it looks like nothing so much as a second genome – then it turns, gaining features and definition with the movement.  The monkey tail separates into three plumes; a ponytail unfurls into wings that lift up from the sides of the head.  

Teleute(?) is here, dressed in her customary black, but there is colour in her skin, and her hair and eyes are blue.  she’s frowning.]

. . . well.  This is the least I can do before I go, in exchange for the safe harbor.

[she lifts her head, nodding to any observers, and gestures at the door.]

You’ll want to head in there now if you don’t wish to lose your flockmate, I think.  Even the false-death of this place won’t be much help to him, if his soul is left to finish pulling itself apart.

My sisters and I can maintain the way into and out of it for you, but we were not made to knit such wounds by ourselves.  Have a care.

Comments

[electricflock]

[tap taps on his shoulder and hops so his mask clacks against the shade's]

Then better get back to work.

[finalbows]

"Right... should I wait? Until you're ready to do another perfomance..."

[ he looks out at the theatre. tries to find an empty seat. can't.

muffin can see, though, if he looks. a private box you can only get to if you can fly. ]

[electricflock]

Am ready. Already have song in mind.

[muffin follows his gaze... chirps? if there's no seat in the front row, then it must be the box. his VIP isn't going to sit on a sarcophagus.]

Up there?

[finalbows]

"Oh...! Same place it always was in the auction house...

That's perfect."

[ ths next time muffin takes his eyes off him for but a second, he's up there. giving him a little wave. ]

[electricflock]

Fancy!

[whistles, fancy teleportation! fancy private box! muffin trots back out to center stage and casually hops to stand on one foot, a bird at ease]

Quetzal! Can your piano play with me? Is better with accompaniment!

[finalbows]

"Of course. Just hum a few bars first, and it'll be sure to catch on."

[electricflock]

[hums a short introduction of something leisurely and quiet, but that's only the piano's part.

he puts his foot down and tucks his hands into his sleeves again]

Got it? Ready?

[finalbows]

"Ready!"

[electricflock]

Oo-woo!

[there's no lyrics this time, not even to a bird's ear. it's pure sound and delight, singing for nothing but the joy of the act and the happiness of his audience. he thinks about red apples, orange roses, late-night calls, and a tail around his wrist, and he sings higher.]

1/2

[finalbows]

[ the performance concludes.

Angie waits a few moments, spellbound. Waiting to see if there's anything more. But when he's convinced, that's all, that's it...


This little fragment of the man, holding his carefully nurtured powers of love, claps with all of his soul in it.]

2/2

[finalbows]

[






the clapping stops.
he's gone, leaving only a few wisps of fading light.
but muffin knows...
he's not gone,
but rather, back where he should be. ]

[electricflock]

[muffin sweeps his arms wide and bows for his applause, and bows again to the empty box. he gestures broadly across the empty stage and claps for the piano too.]

Thank you, thank you. Until we meet again.

[then he pulls down his mask, bows one last time, and exits stage-left.]

[finalbows]

[ the piano waits for him to leave, then slowly starts up a new tune. ]

[ with the night's show declared done, the stagehands are all going home. the clumsy dolls are heading out one way, the Genomes another. ]

[electricflock]

[peeps!]

Wait!

[he doesn’t want to be left here by himself! he’s got to return this key! muffin goes after the genomes]

[finalbows]

[ the conceit of the theatre house falls apart the farther you follow the Genomes to their "exit," interjected with more and more tree roots, and increasingly, unsettlingly organic features. every source of light becomes a dizzying blue. there's one hall that nearly all windows, showing... wow.

Your surroundings have become truly alien and bizarre.
Looking at it, you know... this...
...is the world Quetzal originally came from. ]

[electricflock]

[muffin starts to slow down, too busy gawking at the scenery. consciously he knew everyone was from different worlds, obviously, but besides the pasture itself this is the first he's really been to.]

Wow...

[finalbows]

[ and soon, he'll be able to do much more than just look at that other world.
he'll be able to touch it. feel it. know it, like angel devil is so, so full of dread and certainty that other people will know, feel, see, and fully find it as--

unsightly,
odious,
disgusting,

as he does.

the soft strains of piano fade out, and are replaced by thrumming harpstrings, as Muffin is fully immersed in this other world, no longer bound by any walls. it's... a town? a village. houses, buildings with random protrusions and rounded shapes like they were built by very big and industrious insects. the Genome stagehands wander about, and it's almost like being in the middle of any other small village... but everyone walks on as if alone. sleepwalking. too locked deep down in their own heads to talk or look up at each other.

the blue light from above comes in pulses, and makes your head hurt with each new one. ]

[electricflock]

[he's thinks it's COOL! and NEAT! But ow? ow?? muffin shields his eyes and corners a passing Genome]

Excuse me, um— is anywhere I can go inside?

[finalbows]

[ the stagehand stares blankly at him,

then turns away, and starts walking... though at a slower, easy to follow pace.


they lead him into the town's meeting hall. handfuls of Genomes are already present, basking in the light off of some big ol crystals.

indoors Does offer blessed reprieve from the steady pounding of the blue light against his brain. good call, muffin. ]

[electricflock]

[chirps at the Genome]

Thank you.

[he mills around, taking in his surroundings. watching his feet so he doesn't trip on some root or other. eventually he drifts over to one of the crystals.]

...art?

[finalbows]

[ the world around him briefly ripples, recognizing one of the many names of this shattering soul. ]


[ as he allows the crystal's light to sink into any bared skin, words resolve into his mind from what's initially just fuzzy garbage noise. ]

Vessels, listen well...
This is the record of our civilization...
The seeds' decline was not our fault...
All vegetation and...vessels...died out...
The decay of our Terra... triggered it all...
In order to stop the decay, many methods were considered...

[electricflock]

[chirps at the ripple. not a bird noise this time, but a cat's mrrt?]




[he's gonna touch the crystal]

[finalbows]

[ the whole sordid story
unfurls, beneath the press of his fingers. the crystal melts out from the point of contact like wet sugar, weeping regret of what's long lost:

they had solved the puzzle of mortality. the people of Terra would never have to fear death,

but the miracle method proved double-edged.
the very life of their planet...
...starved, bled, snuffed out, because they refused to feed it of their precious lives and dead.
a broken circle does not continue,
only terminates. a mere line.


So they found a way to complete the circuit again.
If their planet could no longer live on its own,
They would pour new blood into old veins.
Terra wandered the cosmos a deathless parasite, preying on worlds that had yet to truly grow, breaking the unhatched open to pour down their gullets--

Until it ran out of convenient prey.
All that was left, was Gaia...

...but Gaia was too much for it, frail and weak with its age.
The two worlds collided, Terra vanishing to a sliver--
Gaia, scarred.

What was left of Terra dreamed, rotten and deathless, in the darkness below, and prepared, covetous of life and waiting to rise...

The last pieces of the crystal fall apart to a sugary sludge on the floor, a dark, solid shape left in the middle of the mess. If he wants to see what it is, he'd have to dig around in it. ]

[electricflock]

... Sorry.


[AVOIDS EYE CONTACT WITH ANY GENOMES

carry on

this is normal



ignore the guy wading into the muck of your history to rummage around like he's looking for the prize in a melted kinder egg]

[finalbows]

[ the Genomes have absolutely no opinionated reaction in any way, shape, or form. the ones that were basking in this particular crystal keep passively standing, even when the signal has obviously cut out from what they were listening to.

there's definitely ones that ARE watching him, though. just. taking that all in like rocks with eyes.]

[ ...poor muffin. his everything is going to be so, so sticky.
at least it's not hard at all to reach through a bunch of sludgy wet sugar to pick the mask up, sugar-clumps sloughing off as he picks it up to look at it.
Gained MASK OF THE GUILTY. ]