The Age Up/Down Meme

[kingshaming]

Look, most of our characters have lots of backstory to take advantage of, or headcanons for their future. This is the place to use it!

Prompts

1) People are suddenly shifting ages on the good ship Teremity! It's probably space waves and will fix itself in a day or two, so enjoy reliving your mispent youth.

2) You were always this age! Nothing bad is happening and you all already know each other and it's all cute af. A fluff option.

3) You are this age... and going through your round (or a remixed version) of your Airlocked season. Not for the REALLY young age downs!

Comments

[misanthropicprinciple]

And the action you have to take is what, exactly? If it's not killing all of us for the free ride home.

[scourgingstars]

That is none of your concern. It has no bearing on any of you, as I've no intention of killing anyone.

[misanthropicprinciple]

...Fair enough. Guess I'd have no reason to care if it doesn't affect us.

[Except this ornery old man very clearly does care, for once.]

It does affect you, though. Right? Something like the fate of the world hanging over you, that's something they can use to move you against us eventually, if this 'different future' bullshit doesn't do it for you.

[scourgingstars]

It's my entire world at stake, of course it affects me. But I'm telling you I am not so weak of will or cowardly enough to betray anyone here. My kingdom will not find salvation through betrayal.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Hm. If you say so.

[He's so convinced. Now, though, he gets up, since it doesn't seem that pressing the matter will get him anywhere.]</small You ever change your mind about talking about it with someone, you know where to find me. I'd be curious to hear how you'd do it, given the similarities in our situation. Later, then.

[scourgingstars]

...Don't regard me as though I am some child, Tenmyouji. I hardly need guidance or counsel as though I were your grandson myself.

[misanthropicprinciple]

[He snorts.]

You're, what. Sixteen?

[scourgingstars]

Eighteen. I have been king of Lucis for two years.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Ohhh, eighteen.

[He rolls his eyes and then points at Ardyn with the hand holding his root beer float.]

I don't care if you're Emperor of Japan. I call it like I see it, kid, and my ten-year-old grandson's got a more mature grasp of reality than you. You think you can handle it alone, fine, but take it from someone who knows--you got a world of hurt coming to you if that's how you handle yourself.

[scourgingstars]

I don't care.

[Flatly, like the whole thing was something he'd resigned himself to a long time ago.]

I would rather the suffering be mine than that of my people.

[misanthropicprinciple]

[It's almost like Ardyn's slapped him across the face. His eyes widen for a moment, and then his brows come down like a thundercloud once more, jaw clenched.]

You're an idiot.

[His free hand is a white-knuckled fist at his side.]

You can't take people's suffering away from them. They're always going to suffer, it's part of fucking life! If it isn't your plague, it'll be something else--war, starvation, the goddamn nuclear holocaust. What'd a single martyr ever do for anyone, huh? All they get is misery without changing a damn thing.

The least you could give your fucking people is a chance to try to fight for themselves.

[scourgingstars]

You don't understand. [That came out not quite sharp enough to be an accusation, but certainly close to one.] No, you can not understand.

What I am doing is giving the people of the world a fighting chance. It's helping them to survive to see the next morning, so that they may continue to build a world worth saving.

[misanthropicprinciple]

How? By keeping them in the dark about what it'll take? Protecting them alone from things they don't want to know? That's self-serving horseshit, Majesty.

[scourgingstars]

By curing the plague so they don't die, must I spell it out?

[misanthropicprinciple]

Then why all the secrecy? If it's that simple, why's it such a big deal?

[scourgingstars]

...It simply is. I have to be the one to do this; me, and no other. It is my burden to bear and my purpose to fulfill.

[misanthropicprinciple]

...

Human beings don't have purposes. The only thing we can do with life's shit is dig a single shred of meaning out of it before we die. I just hope you learn that before you fuck yourself over.

[scourgingstars]

You're wrong. I am one who was given a purpose by the gods, and I intend to see it through. [He brought his right hand close to his chest, again curled loosely into a fist.]

I am what the people of Lucis-...no, what all the people of Eos need of me, long before I am a human. I am Ardyn Lucis Caelum, king of light that will bring dawn to a world where no one has to live in fear of the darkness and daemons. No matter what happens to me, no matter what it costs, I will not allow myself to give in.

[misanthropicprinciple]

...Then I guess it's already too late. You're just like her.

I'll see myself out.

[scourgingstars]

...




Why do you care so much?

[misanthropicprinciple]

[He stops with his hand on the doorknob for a long time before finally glancing over his shoulder.]

Because the world doesn't need another jackass wasting his whole life chasing happy endings that aren't there.

[scourgingstars]

And what of the people who still live because of me? Are their happy endings worth nothing?

How is-...how could anyone call a life wasted if it were to be spent saving others?

[misanthropicprinciple]

So that's how you measure the worth of your life? By the number of people you save? Doesn't matter who they are, what they do, how they spend the years you give them?

[scourgingstars]

I would suffer through anything to give them an opportunity at life, to live as they see fit--it is not for me to argue whether one afflicted person is more or less deserving of a cure than another. My happiness is that of my people. Their gratitude and relief when an incurable scourge simply disappears and takes their pain along with it is...more gratifying than I can ever describe.

I don't...understand how one could see this path as wrong.

[misanthropicprinciple]

It's admirable in theory, maybe, but that's not how it works. Only your happiness can be your happiness. Giving it all to someone else... that's not a life at all.

[He turns to face Ardyn again, then puts a hand to his chin.]

Let me put it to you this way. Would you want anyone else to live the way you do?