hadriel | video/action (forward-dated to 4/20); while collecting the stars, i connected the dots

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video/action (forward-dated to 4/20); while collecting the stars, i connected the dots

[The video wobbles a minute before it steadies, locking onto a grinning skull. It's your friendly neighborhood skeleton, Sans, looking undeniably pleased with himself as he comments to someone just off screen:]

'S lookin' great so far.

[There's a fumbling tapping as the feed gets jostled, and Sans is forced to set the thing onto the ground, face-down. At least the audio filters through, unimpeded if a bit muffled.]

All right. We ready?

[There's a distant sound of affirmation - two, actually, though one sounds a mite more stammered than the first. Kate, it seems, hadn't much wanted to take part in the announcement itself. So when the feed swings up again, there's two distinctively non-human shapes in the periphery - a yellow, lizardlike creature and a small black hedgehog that sharp-eyed cave-dwellers might recognize as Alphys and Shadow, respectively. The video jerks again, blurring the twin blazes of color into smeared linear streaks, and the cave gets a lovely shot of Sans's pink fuzzy slippers in preparation for the finale.

There's a click of fleshless fingers snapping; hundreds of tiny, glowing objects being displaced and then replaced, buried into the rock of the ceiling. Takes a lot out of a skeleton and leaves him a bit stooped from the effort, but it's worth it.

The camera swings up again to pan across the ceiling, now lit with a vast array of blue sparkling stones.]

It ain't Tranquility's illusions, but... [One last whip-pan back to Sans's face, and he winks at the camera, lookin' just a tiny bit more on the edge of exhaustion than usual. Just a hair.] You can consider it a good constellation prize.

[Enjoy the night sky, Hadriel. It'll last for quite a while. Sans, for his part, plans to be stargazing all night. Feel free to find him at the lake, if you're real interested.]

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[That, right there, that look - yeah, it's more than worth it. It's...genuinely a nice thing, right there, seein' someone surveying the sky with that level of pleased wonderment.]

Not sure if it's astronomically accurate, but...looks well enough like the real thing, I'm hopin'.

[Kain nods eagerly. He's less concerned about accuracy as he is about... having a sky again, or something resembling one.]

It really does... All worlds may have their own constellations, anyway, I've no doubt. So it's probably for the best that it doesn't represent any single one. It's... Hadriel's night sky, unique in its own way.

[He still hates the cave life but this makes it so much more bearable.]

[Kind of a nice way of puttin' it. Optimistic, in its own right.]

And we gotta whole mess of constellations that need naming and categorizing now. What a world, huh?

[The last thing he wants is to start enjoying this place, to start being... comfortable here. But maybe it's important to have something like this.]

What a world indeed. This is one of the few good things I've ever seen happen here. I look forward to seeing what's up there... perhaps even joining in on their naming as well.

[One of the few good things, even with all the genuinely nice events that've rolled on by? Well, hell. He can't blame him for that.]

Hey, why not? We need us some astronomers, stat.

[Ok, so sometimes things really aren't so bad. Kain just loves dwelling on the negative.]

We do. And bards to sing songs of the heroic figures up there in those constellations...

[He really does wonder what Edward would think, the kind of epic ballads he'd construct.]

Bards, huh?

[He, uh...wouldn't know, actually. He's basing these stars off the kind of "stars" they had back home, which was more or less the same deal: bunch'a sparkling stones stuck on a ceiling in the absence of any actual sky.]

Can't say we had any of those in the Underground.

Some of them could be... a little too overdramatic... but that probably comes with the job. Their stories and songs were generally worth listening to.

[He even oddly almost... sort of misses Edward, of all people. He misses all of them, if he thinks about it too much, so he tries not to.]

Yet you had stars? Or something like the ones we now have?

We had sparkling stones stuck on the ceiling. 'S kinda how the idea worked out, actually.

[He'd mentioned it to Shadow, and Shadow had taken it to heart, deciding - hell, why not try to recreate it? He wouldn't know how close it is to the real thing, but from what everyone's been sayin', it's close enough to count for something.]

I'm glad you were able to re-create that here. It's remarkable... it seems that your past experience has paid off.

[It only stands to reason, those who've lived underground have a good sense for this sort of thing. Kain looks to Rydia sometimes to figure out how to really... get by in a place like this.]

Turns out there's perks to bein' used to gettin' stuck underground after all.

[Who'da thunk it.]

There certainly are. Those of you who are used to it haven't had to adjust in the way that those of us from the surface have. I almost envy it in a way.

Better to've seen and lost, or to've never seen at all?

[That's...not usually how the saying goes, but why shouldn't it be?]

I often wonder if it's really worth it, when it comes to that loss. I'd almost rather not know any better, sometimes.

[But he has to admit it, sometimes he wouldn't want to trade his memories for anything.]

Well, the good news 's you don't have to. Most people can't choose to wipe that kinda thing away.

[He says "most people" 'cause he's learned that anyone with Confusion's blessing is liable to...do something with it, if they so choose. And he ain't sure who among their number might have that particular blessing.]

But others can? Though I couldn't bear actually losing such memories, especially if they're all I have. Besides, I wouldn't recommend tampering with memory loss, after experiencing it.

[He's just glad he'd regained anything at all, after leaving behind the gods' war. He very well might not have.]

Take it up with Confusion. Apparently that's what her blessing can do for ya.

[Trust him, he ain't real happy about that either.]

Huh, funny you say that...

[He almost leaves it at that, then belatedly realizes he probably should explain.]

Confusion once chose me, back during that little competition of the gods. Perhaps there's a good reason for that.

[Not to mention, he's had amnesia problems before in the other god-war he was in. He really doesn't want to deal with that again, but it's... interesting it had happened that way.]

You sayin' you scored that little blessing?

[That'd be a cruel twist of irony, if that were the case. Can't say he's got any fondness for Confusion or her proclivities, but this - this is just pourin' salt in the wound, ain't it?]

I didn't get any blessing, unfortunately... but I always wondered why she chose me.

[He sighs heavily.]

No, on second thought, I'm pretty sure as to why. I've dealt with plenty of confusion in the past. She probably... sensed something about me.

Hey, I kinda wondered why Delight picked me. I mean, don't get me wrong, my jokes are hilarious. [Uh-huh. Sure thing.] ...buuuut most people seem to find 'em infuriating instead.

I don't doubt it. [He hasn't heard any of these jokes specifically, but he's certainly heard enough infuriating ones to be able to guess.] Who knows what goes through the minds of gods, truly? They're less predictible than people, sometimes.

[Heh. Well, it's the thought that counts.]

They are, at that. Can't rightly blame 'em, I'd suppose. Probably real strategic to be consistently inconsistent, don'tcha think?

Yes. It would seem to be their strategy. I suppose it works well for someone with the kind of power that they hold... and to allow them to keep that power, too.

You figure a power like that can be taken away?

[That's interesting. Also improbable, but there's nothin' to be lost by spitballing here.]

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