nyx "loud horny peacock" ulric (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
warpspammer) wrote2021-01-14 06:20 pm
warpspammer) wrote2021-01-14 06:20 pm
INBOX (![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
noctiumrp)
« JURO »
TEXT ✧ AUDIO ✧ VIDEO ✧ ACTION
NYX ULRIC ✦ FINAL FANTASY XVRESIDENCE ✦ Emerald District, Sumarlok
GEMBOND ✦ SAPPHIRE This is Nyx. I'll get back to you as soon as I can.
PERMANENT LOG ✧ PERMISSIONS ✧ KINKLIST ✧ OVERFLOW
no subject
[He knows nothing of war and combat, not in the way that Nyx does. His battles have always been fought with words in a courtroom, where imminent death was riding on reason rather than reflexes. But he does know something of betrayal. And he certainly knows the feeling of having the whole world drop out from under your feet as an unexpected treason suddenly comes to light.
This is the right place for a conversation like this. Someplace cozy and hidden away behind thick walls, tucked away beneath blankets. Someplace quiet. Someplace safe.
He wonders when it is he started equating safe with unobserved.
Maybe he already knows the answer to that.]
Drautos was with the attacking army, then. A twice-effective move, both aiding the enemy and leaving your Kingsglaive leaderless all at once.
no subject
[ A discontent, angry noise - but an old anger. ]
The thing that got me was the King... knew. Not about Glauca, but he knew the whole signing was a farce, that they'd launch some kind of attack. He let it happen because the person he wanted to protect was already safe - he'd sent his son and the Crownsguard out of the city a few days before.
To hear Luna and the King say it, though, the Prince needed to live. Something about a prophecy. Fucking awful prophecy when a ton of innocent people die for it.
[ He closes his eyes - this is what makes him truly angry. That the King simply let it happen. ]
.... He paid for it, though. Glauca cut him down while I was getting Lunafreya out, not that I knew he was my captain at the time. Lib heard him on the radio with the traitors after he'd contacted me to tell me where to bring Lunafreya, as my commander. Got shot for it, Lib tried to save me but...
[ He inclines his head, like he's shaking it a little. ]
We weren't just trying to get Lunafreya out, but a ring, some kind of magical shit. When I realized he was going to kill us, I put it on, bargained with the King's ancestors - their power for my life. Managed to get Lib and Lunafreya out of the city and kill Glauca before they came to collect it.
Only, you know, I ended up here so jokes on them I guess.
[ The last part is shared quickly, almost hurriedly. It's not something Nyx thinks about too often - that if he's not here, he's as good as dead. ]
no subject
He hadn't handled it well when it was Damon Gant, either. Wright still probably hasn't forgiven him for that, not altogether.
But there's no running away, not here. And he's a little startled to find that he doesn't really want to, even if he could. For once, being at a loss doesn't make him feel hunted and defensive, just...lost.]
It isn't often that I end up speechless.
[This isn't about him, but there's a little breathy hiccup beneath the words that suggests he's trying to make a joke, even knowing it's a feeble one.]
There's no chance of it going differently, is there. No possible other path waiting for you back there, it's — it's just.
[It isn't often he ends up speechless.]
If you were to vanish again. The ancestors would have their chance to catch up with you.
no subject
They don't even have to catch me, I just have to go back.
[ He lifts his scarred arm, with the odd, silvery scars, some larger and some smaller. Most of them spindle out from the palm of his hand. ]
Didn't get these just because I'm pretty, you know.
[ I was already falling apart is too hard to say. The fact that Lunafreya died too is too hard to consider as well. They weren't close but - well, he's been around Miles long enough to know there was something there, doomed as it was from the start. ]
It's just.. unfair, y'know? What happened. What the King did, what Drautos did. Even if the King had his reasons. He was a good King; it's the only time I've ever felt betrayed by what he did.
Glauca asked, if I would join them. Almost thought about taking it up but... I've got my pride, my loyalty. He wasn't any better than those that took my home away. I just gotta hope it all counted for something in the end.
no subject
[It's the only thing he can think of, looking at the scars; he's seen plenty of them on Nyx's body before, has traced them with his fingers and mouth, but it's different to see them and realize that they're a bargain written out on the canvas of Nyx's flesh, placed there by supernatural loan sharks just waiting to collect their due.
He closes his eyes, lowering his chin a minute. There is no right thing to say; any attempt he makes will only fall flat, rendered disingenuous at best and offensive at worst.]
I wish there were such a thing as a world where fairness mattered. Or where good intentions were enough. I'm sorry I have...so little to offer you, in consolation.
[ He reaches down the bed for Nyx's hand, twisting their fingers together as he adds halfheartedly: ]
You could always argue to the ancestors that your bargain is unenforceable. They neglected to write it down, so it's not legally binding.
no subject
You and I both know there isn't, but that's one of the things you fight for, yeah? Making things fair. Making sure Justice's served for big or little things.
[ A soft laugh, though. ]
Yeah? You gonna argue with some old Lucian dudes for my soul? You might have better luck than me, cause I only convinced them not to incinerate me on the spot.
no subject
[He gives Nyx's hand a squeeze.]
I know it sounds like a hair-splitting distinction. But justice is...subjective. And should be. But the subjective needs something objective to rest on. A community can't decide what's just without first knowing the truth.
[He's doing that thing again, where he goes off on a truth bender, but at least this time it's mostly quiet and reflective, rather than bold and impassioned. It fits the tone of the moment.]
I was trained that the truth came handed to me in manila folders with mugshots paperclipped inside. And it was always the same truth: this is evil, so vanquish it. Defeat it. To win is to achieve justice.
Now, I leave justice to people like you. You and your reckless heart. Truth and justice: one finds what "is"; one sees what "should be". It takes both kinds.
[His tone turns a little wry, and a touch smug.]
And yes. I will argue every last one of them into submission for you. I'm very good at my job.
no subject
He squeezes Miles' hand, looking up at him from where he's stretched out, and he can feel the soft affectionate smile that is probably far too dopey for the situation spread across his face. ]
Hey, me and my reckless heart appreciate knowing the truth too. Keepin' secrets has never worked out. Plus I know you're good at your job. If anyone is gonna convince some hundred year old dead guys to not kill me, it'd be you.
[ He hasn't had a chance to see it but he believes it, wholeheartedly. ]
The guy who taught you about justice being in folders - that was your mentor, right? The asshole.
no subject
[It's the right time of year for men who should've done better by us, he'd said once, not so long ago. The king of Nyx's country, selling out his kingdom for the sake of a scheme he never revealed until it was too late. The leader of Nyx's military unit, secretly a traitor. The head of the police force in his own Los Angeles. The man who'd raised him from a child and molded him into the demon prosecutor he once became.]
He and my father were old rivals. My father was a defense attorney; von Karma prosecuted a number of cases against him. He won, always — in the whole of his career, he had never failed to secure a guilty verdict. That was his creed: perfection. The perfect prosecutor. More a force of nature than a man.
[He pauses, lips pressing together into a thin line.]
My father put the first, and for a long time only, blemish on his record. Not a loss, just a penalty, but still. An imperfection.
[His fingers tighten around Nyx's.]
I think — the murder itself, he confessed, was opportunistic. A chance too good to pass up. He shot my father in cold blood while he was unconscious in a stalled elevator. But the plan...he must've thought it through meticulously, piece by piece. That was how he did things.
A penalty on his perfect record; my father's death wasn't nearly enough to compensate for that. So he took me in and spent fifteen years raising me, all the while letting me believe I was responsible — that I was a murderer, as guilty as the ones that I prosecuted in my career. He orchestrated a plan to have me framed for murder on the anniversary of my own father's death, so that in that way his revenge would be properly complete: the life of the son as well as that of the transgressor, but not before molding that heir into the very antithesis of everything Gregory Edgeworth had stood for.
He must have taken such pleasure in it. Listening to the stories of my childhood nightmares, knowing I spent my youth tormented with the guilt of something he'd secretly done himself. Making me into a von Karma in all but name. Dangling validation just out of my reach to watch me jump for it, knowing all the while how he would send me to my death in the years to come.
He prosecuted the case against me. Forced my own detective to give the damning testimony to convict me. Watching as I accepted the horror of it all because I truly thought it was what I deserved.
[He falls silent a minute.]
It's strange, knowing that in every memory I have of him, he was plotting the trajectory of my death behind his eyes. I suppose that must be how it feels for you to think back on your captain now. How it changes things in retrospect, to learn what the man was all along.
no subject
There's sympathy, too. Nyx didn't like anything that involved fighting humans, even enemies. But they had met on a battlefield. What would it be like to live with condemning someone to prison or death because you truly believed you were doing the right thing, just to have it yanked out from under you?
He squeezes Miles's hand again when his fingers tighten, shifting a bit. His other hand moves to brush against Miles's leg through the blanket, fingers dragging in a back and forth motion that he hopes helps soothe.
He doesn't tell him it'll be okay because, well, they both know they can't change the past. And Miles hadn't offered platitudes to him. ]
That's pretty accurate, I think. He wasn't Galahdian, wasn't one of my dads and he was a hardass but.. he trained me, y'know? He gave us something to fight for.
[ He sighs. ]
I can't imagine facing something like what you went through. At least he just tried to stab me.
[ A beat. ]
Shit, we need better ment-enemies.
no subject
[He's quiet again, just for a minute.]
The stalled elevator. It had stopped because an earthquake had knocked out the power in the building. I was trapped inside with my father for...hours. To this day I'm still —
[...]
Affected. At times. By that.