WEEK 3; TRIAL

[killerwaves]

TRIAL

Like last week, the kitty bots herd everyone over to the sandbar once the time for investigation has concluded. At the least, this little piece of your personal hells has emerged unscathed in all the wreckage. Unlike last week, Overhaul and Shigaraki are already there waiting for you, the former looking about as grouchy as a mask can get and the latter looking pretty amused.

Off to the side in a booth of its own is the body as well as attendant kittybots; apparently it’s messy enough this time to require some clearance, but it’s still close enough for the admins to oversee.

This murder sure was something, even for your masterminds. Theorize and/or judge about who could have done such a thing and get a snack from your local kitty bots if you get hungry—the theme is italian today, with pizza, mozzarella sticks, stuffed meatballs and the like.

(( OOC: Welcome to your second trial! You'll have 7 hours (8PM EST/5PM PST) to find the killer and send them off their death, if you believe in justice at least. Since this is scapegoat style, finding the correct killer is not mandatory!

Please remember to vote before then unless you've spoken to a mod, as votes are our stand-in for AC. ))

Locations Profiles Investigation Voting Main Nav

code

Comments

[idologue]

[ Well. That is a reveal. At this point, Lacus no longer falters one bit. She just looks at Lobelia straight on. ]

Lobelia - is this the love you've found?

[conchy]

[Leave it to his darling Lacus to hone right in on the truth. Lobelia nods — why should he feel any shame? — and confirms her suspicions. She knows who he is, what he is, so if he owes her anything now, it's the cold, unvarnished truth.]

Oui. I'll be returning to him soon enough.

[idologue]

[ Of course.

This is what she's been thinking since this morning, since the second she let go of Zelkov's hand on the beach. 'If his priorities haven't changed', she'd said, but she'd already known that they changed, hadn't she? That there was something here, a force beyond what Lobelia had expected. ]

You will, yes.

[ A nod. ]

Did he feel the same?

[ It does not matter in the slightest, but she'd at least like to know. ]

[conchy]

Bien sûr! Vergilius would deny it and argue otherwise, but in his heart, he knew the truth of our enchevêtrement.

[Holy mother of delusion, batman, but there's a reason why Vergilius was the one who managed to dig so deeply under his skin when no one else could.]

"You'll never know happiness," he told me, and he smiled as he said so. The one thing I've wanted my entire life would always slip out of my grasp like a precious jewel! He told me with such fire in his eyes, such passion!

Miserable as he was in life, Vergilius too was happy once. He assured me of that much while crushing my own dreams of achieving the same happiness for myself! Ahhh, in that moment, I knew I had to have him.

[So like. Maybe you shouldn't gloat about knowing what happiness is if you don't want a crazed frenchman to plot your downfall?? Well, it's a little too late to worry over the details now. The seeds rooted long ago, and all that remains now is the sickly fruit.]

He accepted his fate, knowing we would be forever intertwined so long as he dangled that happiness before me. Even if I must follow him into the grave and claw it out of him again and again and again, I will! He's illuminated my path, Chère! He's shown me the cold, hard truth, and I've embraced it!

[idologue]

[ Is this what it is, then?

"You'll never know happiness" - cold hard truth? ]

I suppose I must be grateful to Vergilius after all. He seems to have answered my question as well.

[ There is no accounting for people like Lobelia in the world of the living, is there? The happiness he chases would always bring him to consume and be consumed, to burn out entirely.

It hurts to hear. And still, she has to hear it. She's glad to have asked, knowing that Lobelia would always face her directly. That straight-forward way he'd look into her eyes and speak the most abhorrent things, and she'd understand... and be understood...

She won't cry here, but her eyes are swimming. ]

And are you happy? Or will you be left chasing it eternally, running your fingertips along the edge of it as you rush after his soul through the beyond?

[conchy]

[If Vergilius had done one thing for him that no one else ever could, it was ensuring he understood the truth of his reality, that a man like himself can't even conceptualize happiness, much less genuinely feel it.

It's not as if he can feel sadness as others do either, having first resented Vergilius for dashing his hopes before finding himself resigned to it. What Vergilius did was kill that long-held dream within him, that desire to be happy, the lesson his parents spent his entire childhood ensuring him that he would find.

Everyone has the right to be happy— even you, Lobelia.

It's for the best that his parents are dead and gone. They'll never have to know how he's failed them both, spending his life robbing others of happiness in pursuit of the mere taste of it.]

Vergilius has accepted the price for his honesty. He'll never be rid of me, and so long as he insists on illuminating the path before me, I'll never stray from it. I may not be happy now, but I will be soon.

[There's gravity in his voice, a tired resignation, as he opens his eyes to stare deeply into hers.]

Don't cry for me, Chère! It's as I told you: happiness doesn't belong to people like me. Sing the dreams and wishes of your people so that they might know happiness for themselves. You'll do that, won't you?

[idologue]

[ This isn't enough. She has more questions left, more questions and questions that she'd like to ask into eternity. But they're out of time for something like that.

So instead she nods. ]

Of course I will. For as long as I live, I'll be singing the song of peace.

[ That's something she will never stray from, the same way Lobelia is always in pursuit of his own childhood mantra. That's why they understood one another. ]

And I will remember you and the answers you've given me. Merci beaucoup.

[ Were these lessons worth it? How much harder is it going to be to keep standing, carrying them in her heart? Only time will tell. ]