dissonates | [Voice]

[Silence.

There's too much of it. It burns into his mind, the echo of emptiness in the corner of it, that ache he can't seem to brush aside no matter how he tries to distract himself. He's tried going outside, he's tried burying himself in that braille stuff Xion gave him, he's tried striking up conversations with his housemates (even the animals), but he runs out of things to say far too quickly and in the back of his mind it's always there. The silence, the echo. The fact that something is missing.

Dead.

And then he's had enough.

The journal's camera is partially obscured when the feed flickers on, and what it does show is his face - eyes, a flash of red hair, his bangs down - just enough to make it seem like he's not quite himself. His voice, too, is softened; it's not as open and friendly as Luke would have been when greeting the village, but it lacks the usual anger or pent-up frustrations of the socially-awkward soldier. If anything it sounds... hushed, weary, tinged with a bit of desperation. He needs this. Whether or not he wants to do it is irrelevant.

It hurts. The silence hurts, more than last time when Luke had been sent home, and he honestly hadn't thought it would.]

Tell me about your day. Tell me a story. Talk about anything. Today I'm listening.

[He might not care. He might not be nice about it. He might not even remember it later. But he'll listen.

He just needs to hear something, so he can forget about the nothing in his head for a while.]

((Asch is blind, so all tags must be voice/action or he cannot respond to them!))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A mistletoe.

[TAKE A GOOD LOOK AT THE PICTURE THE JOURNAL'S CAMERA CAPTURED. IS THIS THE FACE OF SOMEONE BULLSHITTING YOU?]

[Sorry, bro, he can't see a damn thing. But the tone reminds him of Jade when he's trolling, and that's damned unsettling.]

...After hearing something like that, I don't think I really have a choice, do I.

Possibly.

[Aw, too bad. Then again, it's not hard to imagine someone's grin to his voice.]

It's pretty obvious, but there's a good reason for the mistletoe.

It sounds too random to not be necessary...

[Ugh, this is ridiculous.]

Fine, I'll bite. Why the mistletoe?

[It's Kouki's favourite example of his ridiculous life.]

The demon god, Beldr, and his mother dreamt about his death. Because of this, his mother went around and get every object on earth to give their vow to never hurt him. But she never ask the mistletoe, either because it's too unimportant and nonthreatening, or too young to make a vow.

Other than that, Beldr's pretty much invincible to everything.

...How does an object vow not to hurt someone?

[...]

While I'm at it, how does mistletoe hurt a demon, anyway?

Magic, I suppose. Back then, vows and such hold a lot of power.

[They still do, these days. But not as much of a clusterfuck.]

As for how, the mistletoe itself can pierce Beldr's immunity. The original story have the mistletoe turned into a weapon by Loki the trickster.

Loki the trickster? Is that someone important?

Oh, he's rather infamous. Not as important as other gods, but his tricks are well known back home.

A god? And you have more than one?

[Wow, they don't even have one on Auldrant anymore. Unless you count the fonic sentiences, but worshiping them is pretty rare.]

That's right. We have a lot of gods where I'm from.

[For each active religions, and even the old ones. Only gods for the largest, most active religions get most of the worship.]

Most of them are pretty alright, as long you don't piss them off.

What, you can interact with them? [That... somehow doesn't seem right.]

Yeah. Not everyone can, but you can communicate with them. [More like "ordering some to do his bidding" or "beat them up".]

It's difficult to imagine. My world doesn't even have any traditional deities.

I didn't know they exist until they show up. [Lightly putting it.] Your world don't have any gods?

Maybe in the ancient past, but these days? They don't exist.

Huh, I wonder why... [Gods don't just simply disappear without a reason. The power of faith might not apply to Asch's world.] But do people still believe in them?

Of course not. How can you believe in something you don't even know exists?

People can believe in anything. A benevolent god to watch over them, a nasty spirit to blame for their misfortune, or to explain away things they don't know.

Hmph. Rather than gods, most people in my world believe in the Score, instead- a world-wide prophecy.

A prophecy? Is it the real deal?

Real enough to be accurate for the last two thousand years.

Whoever, or whatever, made it must be powerful. Did anyone try to do things differently from it?

We've recently deviated from the Score all across the world. It takes a long time to undo thousands of years of belief, though, so there is some resistance.

That's good. It's nice to know when something happen, but I personally think it's easy for people to use this Score as a crutch.

[Voice]

dissonates - 2012-07-27 02:59 (UTC) - Expand

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