familyproblem | Ryslig inbox

[On the bright morning of the 14th, just after it's left gifts for each of the residents of apartment 203, the Nattenskatt makes a return to deposit something else in the back of Gladion's closet.

Lusamine had heard the warnings throughout the month and ignored them all. Thus, her punishment had been appropriately severe. When she awoke to find her apartment and wardrobe in a state of disarray and flew into a rage (as one does when they find a deliberate bite taken out of every article of clothing they own), she met her end between the Nattenskatt's teeth. Perhaps the creature knew, as most of Ryslig does, that monsters never truly stay dead, as leaving her here of all places only seems like the next phase of her penalty.

It isn't until much later in the day that she finally regains consciousness—in darkness. Though exhausted and utterly disoriented, after a few moments of blindly groping, she manages to find the door handle and use it to lurch her way into the room beyond, blinking blearily.]

Edited 2022-12-15 02:42 (UTC)

[All is quiet in this room. Was quiet.

It's not a large room - this is one of the three-bedroom units. Opening the closet reveals a rather sparsely decorated space; a window, a bed, a bedside table, a lamp. Potted plants along the windowsill. A messenger bag sitting against the wall. A stack of books beside it (A Natural History of Conifers at the top), and another, shorter stack on the bedside table (Easy Home Carpentry Projects).

Also a giant ~~Type: Full~~ Silvally plush sitting in a proud loaf on the bed.

It's staring at you.]

[Still gripping the door handle to keep herself steady, Lusamine drags her eyes over every object in the room, each one only making her more confused than the last. This... is very much not her apartment. But if not hers, then whose...?

Finally, her eyes settle on the bed—and she sees it.

It is only a toy, but familiar—in a way that makes her feel a swoop of cold dread in the pit of her stomach. And it's staring at her.

(She thinks of the labs in the bowels of Paradise, of shackles and cold eyes behind a pane of glass.

No one in this world should know what that monstrosity looks like. This is wrong. She... has to get away—immediately, before someone sees...)

A wave of dizziness washes over her. She nearly recoils back into the closet in sheer disgust, but manages to govern herself long enough to plot a proper escape route. Redirecting her attention, she stays near the wall, using it for support as she makes for the door on unsteady legs.

Her usual strength and grace are failing her, however, and her wings are unwieldy. In her haste to reach the door, she knocks one of the potted plants off the windowsill, sending it clattering noisily to the floor.]

[Out in the living room, Gladion stops, looks up, and steps away from his project. Footsteps approach the door to his room, then stop.

His new(ish) sense is telling him that someone (in the plant sense) has been disrupted. It's also telling him that someone (in the animal sense) is in his room.

Who the fuck could possibly be in his room.

...Before dealing with this, Gladion first doubles back and grabs the big stick he keeps under the couch.

Listening, again, for sound from inside before he carefully...reaches for the door...and quickly unlatches and pushes it open and steps back all in one motion, ready to defend himself from whatever comes darting out.]

[There is no further sound from inside, save for the distant shuffling of clumsy feet. From the other side of the door, Lusamine's antennae allow her to sense the approach of another, sending her into an instinctive panic.

She could teleport away—but no, none of her rings are currently active. She could shrink herself down and hide, or make her escape right as the door opens—but no, that had been her fatal mistake when that creature came after her the first time. If she concentrates, she could summon up her Faerie dust—but she can't concentrate, her head is swimming...

All the options leave her the moment the door opens and she sees him. Wretch, thief, traitor—here to torment her again, just like in the caves in Felfri.

With a sharp gasp, she reels backward as if under attack, grappling at the wall with both hands (and sending another of his poor plants to the floor).]

You...!

[Even in her current state, she's able to fit an impressive amount of vitriol into that one syllable.

Belatedly, she doubts her perception. Is it truly him, or another trick? Was it him then, in the caves? She hadn't been certain then either, but if he's here again now...

Her voice shakes with anger.] What... is the meaning of this...?

[Gladion, too, jumps back another step into the hall the moment their eyes meet, face slack with shock. His face is much as she likely remembers it - he's maintained his bangs, less precisely than he used to. His ears are not. They resemble...something else, somewhat, and when he jumps they move somehow, a weak flattening-out that's sort of, almost a pin.

He's wearing a monstrosity of a Nattensweater, just slightly too big for him. And over that, around his neck, hangs a pendant of possibly familiar design.

The image before him is - pardon his language for a moment - completely fucking batshit. His mother is in his room, not his room back on Aether Paradise but the small room in an apartment he shares with Unovan Subway Boss Emmet and his brother Warden Ingo of the Pearl Clan. How? How did she get in. And why. And why now.

Also, she has hurled his pothos (it'll probably be fine.) and cyclamen (NO!!!) to the floor.

Sputtered, toneless with astonishment, taking a hard turn into prickly as he folds his brain around the situation:]

How di- wha- where did you come from. [PROCESSING,] What is the meaning of what, Mother.

[He has not actually let go of the stick. It's just hanging from his hand.]

Edited 2022-12-15 20:54 (UTC)

[The longer she looks, the stranger the images becomes. Not only is it him, here—but he's transformed (What gives him the right?) and... what on earth is he wearing?

When he finally speaks, his voice unchanged (When was the last time they spoke?), she shudders, a flash of pain crossing her expression. His not-quite-question, addressed to Mother, seems to immediately steel her, however, earning a baleful glare.]

Don't... you play coy with me...

[Her own changes aren't much different from those he glimpsed in the Fog Caves; now, her insect-like features only seem less synthetic. Her skin, then pure white, now shimmers with iridescent color, like insect shell, and her wings, when they give a brief, agitated flutter, reveal a flash of colorful eyespots.

She grips the windowsill for support, her long, golden nails clawing at the wood. To her credit, at least she doesn't disrupt any more of his potted plants, even when her voice suddenly rises to a snarl.]

This! This place... [Her blue-and-purple eyes dart about the room, searching for other hidden threats (or maybe just a place she can safely sit down), briefly settling again on the Silvally plush before she has to look away with another shudder.] Where... is this.

[1) She sounds exactly the same as she ever did. He'd managed to forget, somehow, what it felt like to listen to her, except he can't have forgotten because hearing her makes it seem like it was only yesterday. Knowing so acutely that he can't win here that he doesn't even consider the absence of the option, hoping only to wait it out until she gets bored of his intractability and leaves.

2) Her features are so unpleasantly evocative of that one UB that he wonders - for a moment - maybe there's some lingering influence. Maybe. (Never mind that it wasn't that one.)

3) There's something else different about her. Something...lacking? behind the threat of monstrous features. Those claws could rip skin like tissue paper. But without them...

Is it just that he's gotten taller, and she seems smaller? It's strange and unnerving.

Just like it was yesterday, having her scrutinizing (judging, surely.) his personal effects is a Worst Case Scenario. It wasn't actually yesterday, which helps, as does how sterile-white-and-grey this place isn't. And the sort of ghost of Ingo and Emmet's presence, a reminder that the apartment, as a whole, is certainly not Lusamine's.]

This is my room. [And he would really rather she not be there. He finally puts the stick down, along the baseboard in the hall, and he turns to put his back to the wall there, as if stepping out of the way for her to walk past. He stops short of holding an arm out - that would be insolent, surely. (Anything you want Mother to do, you have to arrange things and wait and hope she thinks of it on her own.)

Do you recognize these fixtures, Lusamine? The default construction of 38-8 units?]

Your—?

[That would explain a few things, namely that horrid toy and the dirt scattered under her feet—but it would also mean that he is truly here, and has been for some time.

Intellectually, she had known it to be a possibility, but her hope that she'd only imagined him in Felfri had made her complacent. He's chased her, she thinks, seeking to ruin her, as those two always had. Her head spins.

When he sets down his weapon and steps aside, she watches him warily, clearly simmering, but ultimately takes the message; after taking a moment to summon up her strength, she pushes herself away from the windowsill and totters through the door, away from the abominable plush still keeping watch on the bed.

She doesn't look at Gladion at all when she brushes past him. Instead, she looks at the fixtures of the room and its eerily familiar layout, growing increasingly alarmed with each step.]

This... [Her voice is frail.] Is the Living Complex...

[The very same building she has been living in for over a year now. Her strength threatens to give out then, and she seeks for something—a piece of furniture, or a new wall—to hold onto for support when she rounds on Gladion:]

You... Just how long have you been plotting this? Must you continue to pester me, even here?

[Once she's past him, he - perhaps unwisely - darts back into his room for a moment, to turn his plants upright, and hurriedly scoop some of the spilled mix back in around their roots. They chirp alarm and upset into his new sense, mostly the cyclamen, crushed vasculature and naked roots and too much commotion-!

He whispers a quick apology and leaves again, wary of leaving Lusamine unattended for long.

The living room is lived in, somewhat. There are three to four notable elements here:
1) A few more houseplants scattered around, including a fairly large dracaena near the window.
2) Sewing implements spread across the dining room table, around a jacket whose back has been partially cut out, and some other, less distinct pieces of fabric. The chair here turned around and pulled out from the table, as if just gotten up from.
3) A blanket fort?
4) Occasional tufts of silvery-purple fur attached to the furniture here and there. The couch is there for sitting on, if she doesn't mind taking some fur away with her.

Gladion stops at the near end of the hall. When she turns, she'll find an expression on his face that's guarded but not angry, exactly, now that his plants are confirmed not dead.

It's complex, but he looks concerned. Disturbed. Somewhere between the two.

She's gotten worse was what he kept thinking, every time he heard news about her. Is this what that looks like? Something is physically wrong with her. And the paranoid accusations aren't new, but there's a genuinely fearful edge he's never heard before, and it puts him off-balance. He's not sure how to handle having this kind of power over his mother; his first instinct is to be bitter about it, resenting her ignorance, and...

.....

Not helpful. Shove it down and stand firm.]

I've been living here since coming from Felfri. Money was tight and it came recommended.

[Two years ago, he might have wanted to roll his eyes, lashing back any way he could when his anger didn't matter. Now, he has to be better than that. He has rehearsed being better than that. He has rehearsed this, originally for if/when she woke up, not for facing down some kind of...accusation of...whatever he's being accused of, but regardless:]

I'm our family's protector now. [Said with incredible gravity for a kid in an oversized tinsel sweater.] What world it's in doesn't matter any more now than it ever has.

[.....speaking of which,

he's going to go around the corner and put the kettle on.

If just to give his hands something to do so he's less nervy.]

[On Gladion's face, Lusamine sees only pity and disgust, and it makes her sick with anger. His answer to her question, rational as it is, serves only to make her sicker. She had leaned one hand against the back of the couch to keep herself stable and now, overcome by nausea, has to sink slowly, reluctantly into it, sitting on the edge of one cushion with a hand raised to her temple, as if to ward off a migraine.

(Distantly, she's aware of the tufts of fur clinging to her clothes, and it makes her think, in her near-delirium, that the cat might still be nearby, waiting to ambush her again. She glances furtively around for it as she tries to combat her dizziness.)

I'm our family's protector, Gladion says. This (unbelievable, ludicrous) statement fills her with such fury that she looks up sharply, suddenly focused and alert.]

Protector? You?

[The sheer audacity of it has her reeling and her voice tight with offense. Then its absurdity has her sneering.]

Did you come to that decision before or after you chose to abandon us?

[Lighting the stove. Can't look at her just yet.

Shove it down. Stand firm. Don't take the bait, even if she's right. Things have changed. She hasn't.]

We weren't exactly left with a lot of options.

[100% the wrong thing to say but this can't get any worse, right?

(Feelings status: bad. It's bad.)]

[She gives a derisive scoff.]

What a fine protector you are... To claim that you had no other option but to run off on your own family...

[Getting mugs out of the cabinet - DO NOT SLAM THEM ON THE COUNTER gently place them. Gently.]

I'm talking about now. [Deep breath!] Do you know where you were, Mother, the moment before I fell through to Felfri? On our side?

[It's obvious that her resentment still lingers, and a more scientific part of her had once been briefly curious to know what might have become of other iterations of herself, left behind worlds away, but in the end—]

What does it matter now? I have been here, in this world, for well over a year now... And you left me long before that.

[Why should she care about his side, she wonders, after all he had done and everything that had happened?]

Yet you call me Mother... It really is incomprehensible to me... when you are no son of mine...

[Tea thoughts. If his voice is a little unsteady, no it isn't.]

Then what does it matter to you what I am? [Get the milk and sugar out. He should probably take those over now, but no thank you. Watching the kettle is more pressing.] On our side you're not awake to protect anything, on this side you're not interested. Who's left?

[Not awake? For a fleeting moment, she's confused, then almost unnerved. If she deigns to think back to those moments before she made her escape into Ryslig, she can remember the creature and its horrible, burning light splitting her in two, then a bones-deep, overwhelming tiredness, all the power torn out of her along with her beast...

But she shouldn't. Where is the point in it? That aside, she cannot think of Gladion as truly honest.

It's telling, perhaps, that her silence lasts just a moment too long—but still she recovers, compensating for it by countering snidely:]

Oh... I suppose you are free to go on calling yourself whatever ridiculous thing you please. I only found it to be quite confusing, when your behavior has been so... diametrically opposed.

[Her voice still has a threadiness to it that suggests exhaustion or illness, but now it raises in strength to a sharp clarity.]

That is to say nothing of how there is no family even left to be protected! You made sure of that, after all...

[He has to keep reminding himself: she wasn't well, and she probably still isn't. He doesn't have to defend himself against everything she says, because a lot of it just isn't true.

And then she comes at him with that and, alright, he's glad he's over here and not over there because he genuinely feels light-headed. With. Anger? Anguish? Gladion braces his hands on the edge of the counter; the edge biting into his palms...helps. Maybe.]

I don't care what you think of me, but don't you dare act like Lillie doesn't exist.

[Lillie. Hearing her name spoken aloud seems to strike a nerve for Lusamine, sending a shudder—of discomfort? anger? revulsion?—through her. Then she sighs.]

Oh, I don't claim that she doesn't exist. Only... we cannot be called a family any longer, now can we? Certainly not! She left me just as you did. How can I call such ungrateful wretches my children?

[And yet... When she thinks of Lillie now, more often than she preferred to, she thinks of that determined face above her in Ultra Space, concerned, resolute, and...

Lusamine swallows, bringing her arms around herself.]

The both of you... have always conspired against me. But I am through with it now! I want no part in whatever it is you're scheming... I could have at last been happy here, don't you see? And you would have been rid of me! But now...

[Now things are changing and becoming ugly. Now this world is turning against her, too, like Gladion has poisoned it with his very presence.]

[DO NOT SMACK YOUR HANDS ON THE COUNTER-

-mission failed. Just a little bit. A little thump from his left palm. Shut up shut up shut up Mother what is wrong with you.]

For a year she has - put her blood, sweat, and tears into making sure there was a chance for you - maybe you weren't paying attention but she believed, she walked straight into danger to carry you home, she took your catatonic body to Kanto to find a cure even though I know she still has nightmares-

[The kettle starts whistling. Gladion jumps and swallows and finds his eyes hot. What is he saying? How is he supposed to - do whatever it was he thought he would accomplish, like this?

Lillie isn't even here.

He fumbles at the dial. The whistling slows and stops.

...]

[This outpouring of emotion, full of strange and entirely new information, has Lusamine unmoved. Through it all, she can only think, What nonsense. Even if she were to accept it as truth, she cannot conceive of Lillie's intentions as so altruistic.

There is a retort waiting on her tongue, but the kettle interrupts Gladion with its whistling before she can use it. As he fumbles with the dial, Lusamine sits silent, still, and straight-backed, pretending to be the more put-together of the two of them. Well, her face might say if he were to turn and face it, I'm so glad you've gotten that out of your system.

Her reply comes belatedly, in a low and vengeful voice.]

She chased me. She and that hateful little trainer... hunted me down when I had finally found paradise... I would not have been in the state you describe at all if she just had the sense to leave me be...

[Vexed, she takes in a breath and releases it in a shaky exhale.]

But you just cannot stand it, can you? Neither of you! You cannot stand to see me find any small bit of happiness, in any world...

[Happiness.]

Right. Sure. Maybe they would have just liquified you completely.

[She exhales another short, sharp breath—almost, but not quite, a derisive laugh.]

Yes... And what a relief that would have been for you.

[It's then that she decides that she's wasted more than enough breath on this conversation. Gathering up her meager strength once more, she sets her hands on one arm of the couch (ignoring the way her flesh crawls at feeling the clumps of fur under her fingers) and pushes herself to her feet before glancing around the room again.

The layout is nearly the exact same as her own apartment; surely, she'll have no trouble finding the door...]

[She's still like this. She'd rather be out of her mind than home with them, and he still doesn't know how to make it any other way. No diversions, no obstacles - just him, after everything, screwing it up all over again.

As if running around tidying up after Faba meant anything. As if Mother would wake up magically restored, and Father would remember enough to hand out forgiveness, and - ]

Wait, [he says limply, turning away from the stove. Because he has to. Not because he knows where to take that, with everything that made him strong waiting a world away.]

[Lusamine doesn't wait, finding her path to the door and starting down it as if she hadn't heard him at all. She had done more than enough waiting for him, hadn't she? And what had it brought her? Only pain, and nothingness, and...

And... the room is spinning even more viciously than before, darkening at the edges of her vision. She hardly manages to make it a couple of steps before her knees buckle and the floor rushes up to meet her.]

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