SWANS ✬

[reconnective]

Comments

w3, friday

[reconnective]

[he'll seek everyone out individually on friday after the investigation, telling them to head to hua cheng's room for an important reason. he won't specify the reason, of course. it's not safe to.

but as everyone files in one by one they'll find sora pacing the room nervous and clutching a lion kigu in his hands? this is his emotional support kigu now. as the last person shuts the door...

...he wastes no time, really.]

Sumire was on Swan's team. Also, all of you are on Swan's team, too.

[hi.]

[uhhhmagic]

I'm going to fucking kill whoever did that to Sumire.

[hey.]

[reconnective]

You and me both. [he frowns to himself.] Mob said she left her doll behind, so...I hope that means she fought back somehow.

[supremity]

[ Hua Cheng is mute for the weekend! Hooray!

But after he's let everyone in, and Taako says that? Same! Same hat!

There is an ominous force filling this room with how pissed off he is. ]

[supremity]

[ Hua Cheng whistles, just once, a short and sharp noise to get everyone's attention.

He's already typed it out on his PHS, so holds it for everyone to read at their discretion. ]

for any of you that are hesitating about execution: we can't.

bending rules is one thing, but when we break them, it is literally affecting the structural integrity of the realm. it is affecting the leaders. swan is better off than others, because we've done well at not running our mouths or breaking rules - and we need to keep it that way. if we don't, there's a whole fucking slew of things waiting to kill us besides each other. if the stability continues to fail, we risk losing everything and becoming husks. if it completely falls apart, it comes down around our heads - this place wasn't meant to host us. and all else fails, we have a monster out there waiting, siphoning off nova.

if you have information, now's the time to share it. if you want to ask questions, now's the time to do it. but sumire is dead. [ He is - stormy, angry. That was a girl that didn't deserve what happened to her, who spent the last time Hua Cheng saw her concerned about others more than herself. ] and because she and shiro were killed, that's it. it's in the rules: if someone is killed, we have to find someone and claim they're guilty. i don't know about you, but i'd rather find the guilty party than sentence someone innocent to death again.

if it's a small comfort to you, they're in a limbo space - compare it to a shadow that's being cast by the realm. they're removed from the realm during execution, and this is where they go. there's a chance we can restore them, maybe once we've stabilized the realm, but we cannot let them just go unpunished for killing innocent people simply because they've been told that their nova is "splintered." we cannot fuck up again and repeat the mistake we did with kano.

you heard shima last week.

what you decide is your choice, but really think about that choice before you act on it.

[reconnective]

[he reads. and he nods.]

...Tiger said something interesting to me the other day about how a lot of people view this place as black or white. And I don't think we can do that anymore.

Did any of you get to talk to Sumire about what happened to her yesterday?

[uhhhmagic]

[ . . . ]

Yeah. Unless it was some other thing that happened yesterday?

[i mean. he was there.]

[supremity]

none of this has ever been black and white, right and wrong. elsa said the realm is like a tree more than it is an entity. nature doesn't look at things like people do, mortal or immortal, dead or alive - it just IS.

a place of power will be influenced by its surroundings, the actions that take place there, the people that go there. it doesn't have a mind of its own, it just reacts.

[horologia]

People want to see things as black and white because it's easy. They don't have to look closer and find things they don't like, either about the situation, or how they're reacting to it.

But we can't sustain it, even if the other factors weren't in play.

[horologia]

[ well minor point of order one, homura has her hair down like it's been all week, and point of order two, her glasses are gone. destroyed in some freak building destroying incident that definitely didn't involve a group of angry gorillas and a pterodactyl. ]

... have we done this before?

Has all this happened before? What are the other things trying to kill us? And how do you know this, if it's safe for you to say?

[uhhhmagic]

That's what I asked! I think we're Groundhog Daying.

[supremity]

it's information that's either public, in the case of the supposed monster outside the realm, or has been confirmed by swan or another leader.

i can't answer the others - because besides the past few weeks, i don't know if that's something that has happened.

[uhhhmagic]

[he does read all of this, but]

. . . lil' sanctimonious, aren't ya?

[supremity]

[ A shrug, and an airy laugh since he still has lungs. Presumably. ]

someone has to say it. we're losing bodies about as quickly as memories.

[bisouled]

[ like taako, she also doesn't appreciate the angry tone - it's not like it's their fault this is happening - but she knows he's stressed out, too. They all are. ]

About the whole -- "splintered nova" thing. Do we know anything more about that? What does that mean? And the one telling people to do that - is it the monster, or one of the leaders?

[ better to spend the time trying to find answers. ]

[horologia]

Shima Renzou claims it's someone we've all met.

If he was telling the truth, then we already know them. We might just not recognize them.

[supremity]

[ Publicly everyone has seen a generally chill Hua Cheng but he is. Not actually a nice person, when you get right down to it. I, personally, apologize for him. Fiora got him in roomie mode, before, and this is I Am A Done Ghost King mode. ]

swan heard of it, but it was from people here. the leaders aren't talking to one another about any of this, according to sora.

sora also brought up the possibility of an imposter amongst the leaders. [ He'll let Sora talk about that one, since it was his thought first. ] but apparently someone asked both virid and shima to kill, but neither of them have said who, as far as i know. swan confirmed virid wouldn't say at all.

WEEK 4 - SUNDAY

[uhhhmagic]

[hey.]

So. Which one of you did it?

[bisouled]

[ Fiora looks extremely disheartened. It's fine... ]

We know it was one of you... There's no point in lying. [ a beat. ] I just want to know why. What happened?

[uhhhmagic]

The why is I think “they had to.” To be, uh, fair.

[reconnective]

[hm.]

Did what?

[uhhhmagic]

Oh - come on. Really?

[bisouled]

Sora?

[ she doesn't like this at all. ]

... Sora, did you... did you kill Hikaru?

[supremity]

[ Once the back and forth has gone on long enough - ]

Alright, that's enough. Stop pointing fingers at each other. [ He sounds so tired. ] Swan asked me, to take care of Alyssa, because she was splintering and we agreed that none of you should have to do it. And by that extent, yes - you could have helped. But I didn't plan on making any of you lie for me when our team had no kills, and when I knew the person had a weapon and would be willing to fight with it.

We have enough pressure on us to stay alive for Swan. For each other. If you want to help somehow, next time, fine. But I'll do it again if Swan asks.

[uhhhmagic]

We aren’t pointing fingers we just want to know shit because this shit is fucking frustrating, dude!