[Game 20] Epilogue

[arsgoetia]

Maon leads the way back towards civilization—somehow making his way easily back out through the woods, and you know, there's some things you just don't ask about.

It's a little longer walk back than it was getting there—you'd ended up popping out in a slightly different location. The sun isn't quite up enough to be causing any adverse side effects, and somehow as you walk, you find any fatigue or pain or chill drifting away, leaving you feeling rejuvinated rather than exhausted. The really happy archangel might be partially to blame for that.

The cottage soon comes into sight. Siùsaidh is sitting on the porch waiting, and Tristan's car is once again parked outside.

"Tis about time ye got back," she says firmly. "Tis been three days, and I can only mind an incubus in my home fer so long. Step inside for breakfast, now, won't ye?"

[we will continue to pick at threads in the Endgame but feel free to hit up anybody anywhere in the Epilogue! thanks for the game, see you again in three years soon ♥]

Comments

[delivoreance]

i'm not trying to imagine any... i'm so glad it sounds like he's all right.

are you? is everyone? what happened?

[innerdemon]

I don't think anyone got hurt. I'm ok. A little turned around but when am I not

[second text] lol

[delivoreance]

almost all of the activities we mutually engage in as a group are guaranteed to cause some degree of disorientation and soul searching, even aside from our individual circumstances, so... you know

[2nd text]

can i help?

[innerdemon]

I didn't want to live with Sariel and now that it's over i feel like I'm going to miss 'living with' people in a place that someone's made to feel like a home and I'm beating myself up over it and that's not even counting Luka's feelings.

[delivoreance]

it was nice... i liked it too? don't feel bad about liking it...? having a tribe is incredibly important... even if it's a construction of circumstance, souls thrown together are still...

what ARE luka's feelings?

[innerdemon]

We don't know. If you figure them out let us know.

[delivoreance]

i'm guessing 'conflicted' to start, but i probably shouldn't get points for that; i think it would be cheating...

[2nd text]

ah, i'm... bad at expressing things, you know that? but i've had a lot of time to think over the years about... some fairly pretentious-sounding theories on connections and the soul... not contracts, but, um, tribes, or families, and found places, and the growth of the soul that comes through contact with others, and atonement, and, um

[3rd text]

ok i was correct that that sounded pretentious. um... what i'm trying to say is, wanting that is the natural order of things, and maybe if you don't stay with the angels&co, it's still something you should seek out now that you've discovered that need? because otherwise it could become a limitation, i know you think of it in different terms but needing things keeps you from growth

[4th text]

that was still fairly abstract and pretentious. kazuki would have stopped reading by now? um... i don't want you to feel bad...

[5th text]

whatever you do, you're part of *my* tribe, both of you...

[innerdemon]

I know you are. Thanks

...

Part of our tribe, I mean, not pretentious.

[longer pause this time]

I don't know. It feels like it's something I can't just 'seek out', which, I'm sure lots of people do, but I don't know.

[delivoreance]

probably both are true and i'm okay with that...

[beat]

that sounds very... alienating... what do you see as the barriers?

[innerdemon]

I mean, I'm demon possessed.

[delivoreance]

ah... mean, i know that you don't see any number of relationships with demons and angels with varying degrees of possession as a barrier for anyone else's happiness, elli... you're very kind. so... why is it a barrier when it's you?

[innerdemon]

It limits my options a lot.

[delivoreance]

that's true... still, um, not impossibly limited... given our various associations...?

and sariel might come around. it's not-- it's not an immediate... wall? there will still be options, going forward.

[innerdemon]

No, I'm not saying that, but...

[delivoreance]

But it's discouraging? or...?

[innerdemon]

in terms of meeting new people anyway

[delivoreance]

the normal way, at least

...i suppose that since something that feels more normal than the last few years is what you're after, that's more relevant than it seems at first

[innerdemon]

It's not like I'm 'after' anything in particular. Just that I ran face first into an experience and now I'm having a reaction to removing my face from it.

[delivoreance]

bad wording, sorry... um... more like, that's why the experience resonated with you? um, stuck to your face?

[innerdemon]

Yeah. Something you don't recognize as missing until you get hit by deja vu. That didn't make sense either, did it?

[delivoreance]

it makes sense.

[innerdemon]

Do you know what I realized?

[delivoreance]

What?

[innerdemon]

I think maybe all that stuff from 7 years ago messed me up a little?

[delivoreance]

objectively, we're all very messed up, elli... i think that you probably had more to lose to get there than most of us? or maybe that's the wrong way to think about it. you lost a lot, period...

are you okay?