bottlecaplogs | november catchall

I didn't even get to eat it afterward...

[Tragedy! Injustice! They mime a theatrical despairing pose, the back of one paw pressed against their forehead.]

Ha - too bad. You could have gotten all that hunting debate out of the way before I got here.

[ Admittedly Odile didn't listen to most of that because it was loud and annoying! ]

[Oof. That. Siffrin also didn't listen to most of it, because they've been trying not to think about it.]

But then what would people have brain-arguments over?

I'm sure they'd think of something.

[ Odile's somewhat indifferent to the whole thing. She doesn't do her own hunting, but that's more for practical reasons than anything else. She does not want to run around the woods. But she's a carnivore, and she eats meat. If the Pokemon here think it's all normal, why should she agonize over it? ]

I'm glad we don't have those things at home. "Calling Craft" aside, I suppose.

Maybe that's the real reason we ended up here! The Universe decided it didn't want the secret fourth hand signal spreading any further! [Teehee.]

[If only that were it. Then maybe Isabeau, Mirabelle, and Bonnie would be here too...]

[Selfish of them as usual! Everyone else has a home to get back to, even if they want to keep traveling with stardust for a while first. You should be hoping that Odile and stardust get to go back instead, Siffrin.]

[ Odile smirks. ]

A small price to pay, to defeat the scourge.

[ An off-the-cuff comment. She managed, this time, to think ahead quickly (and well) enough to say that instead of - well, jokingly blaming Siffrin. Even she can guess how that would be received.

This whole discussion may be dangerous, actually. Fortunately Odile is already interested in another angle. ]

How did you come across that?

[ She probably remarked on it before, when they first met in Dormont, but that was not really the time. ]

[Oh, Odile is going to hate this answer.]

I didn't! I just suddenly knew it when... when I became Loop.

[Among other things, like how to make stuff sparkle in Siffrin's vision. Seeing profiles. Being able to spy on stardust in the House, up until the very top floors. Aaaand absolutely nothing helpful about Wish or Time Craft.]

The Universe decided I should have it, I guess.

The Universe?

[ She may or may not have heard them reference it, but she's never really gotten an explanation. ]

[The thought of trying to explain is exhausting. She won't care, won't remember, will just drop it as quickly as she caught it.]

That's right!

[Or will she...?]

And that is...a living thing? With a will?

[ Who knows. She hasn't got any notes about it just yet, but she does have a sense that it's been brought up before...she'll write it down in a moment. ]

We have stories of Expressions teaching people how to use Craft, back in Ka Bue, but those are stories. Nothing that happens observably.

[Urgh.]

I'm not a theologist, R - ! [They cut themself off before they actually say 'Researcher.' They're not doing that anymore. They don't actually want the distance, but the idea of her forgetting again later feels less bad if they have it...]

[Still, that's already something - they're basically confirming that this is a religious thing.]

[...]

It's - everything. We're all part of it. But it leads... [Which doesn't really answer whether the Universe is a living being, but they feel like this was a point of debate even... no, if they think any harder they'll just forget. Keep to the things that feel like instinct.]

[They take a breath in and out, and then push more cheer back into their voice.] Wish Craft feels pretty observable, don't you think?

[ ...she has more questions, but the topic seems strange.

Odile flips through her notebook for a moment. She can't truly keep the subject in her head, but she knows there's some sort of thread she's been following with Siffrin for months. Well before they ever reached Dormont at all. Maybe at first it was born of suspicion; later on, it had seemed...more like a concern. And here it is, "Universe" listed along with "stars". ]

...you're...from that island, aren't you? Across the sea.

[ That's how she thinks of it. It wasn't north of Ka Bue. Of course, Odile thinks of it only roughly so often as something reminds her. When she does, she finds that she can remember its vanishing fairly well. Of course she wanted to know what had happened even back then. Until, of course, she forgot to wonder. ]

. . .

[They don't answer.]

[But that's kind of an answer in and of itself, isn't it? Especially for this Siffrin, who's usually more prone to covering things up by talking.]

[ Odile looks at them for a moment, then back down at her book. ]

...I think I've thought of that before several times. But I kept forgetting.

[ She should have been able to keep better track. She should have thought better than to complain about her own complicated feelings regarding her heritage to Siffrin. Ugh, what a mess. ]

I'm sorry.

...

[They don't know what to...]

. . .

[...hee.]

You're apologizing to me for forgetting? Isn't that my role?

[Not that... they ever actually said "sorry" for it, just tried to awkwardly move along, but.]

Gems, Siffrin, you're really not going to share?

[ One corner of her mouth ticks up into a smile for a moment. ]

I'm sorry that happened to you, I mean. Though - yes, for that, too. I don't suppose that's been easy to deal with.

Nope!!

[They take a slow breath in, and let it out.]

[They don't know that they're ready to talk about this yet. Won't it just be worse when she forgets again? A-and besides, it's stardust she offered to talk to sometime, not them. But.... their chest hurts, or maybe feels warm.]

...it's not like you had anything to do with it! Unless you've been keeping that secret this whole time!

Wouldn't that be something.

[ Sort of seems like that would be both of their luck, at this point! But of course Odile is joking. If she were to harness Wishcraft (it must have been that, right?), she likes to thinks that she'd do something a bit more useful with it.

(She could do it now, she supposes. But she's seen exactly how badly it can go. It's a last resort. ) ]

Was the King as well?

[ It's easy to connect with his raving there at the end. Odile probably would have wondered about that eventually; things just went so completely to hell afterwards that she hasn't really thought of it since. She's thinking about that, and not really catching on to any feelings Loop may or may not be having. ]

[In some ways the King is easier territory! They never ended up having a stretch of empathizing with him to the level stardust did, before it got so horribly turned on them. Probably something to do with stardust's loops eventually progressing past him, while theirs always ended with...]

[Well, either way, it means the feelings they have for him aren't complicated. Good riddance.]

He was! You know, I never realized until stardust started trying to ask him about Time Craft?

[His armor was covered in stars, for Universe's sake, and they just... never thought about it!! (Never needed to, while they were still convinced that all they needed to do to have it be over was defeat him... and as long as they couldn't, he was nothing but a sign of the end.)]

Hm. We should see if he had any interesting belongings tucked away in the house.

[ We killed him and now we get to steal his shit!!! ]

[They're on board with this, as much as it feels more like a silly hypothetical right now than a real proposal.]

Why not! It's not like he's going to be using any of them!!

[Though on second thought... are they really going to want something that used to be the King's? They suppose they could keep it to gloat over it, and it would fit their "Loop" act, but they don't feel overly enthusiastic... and they'd have be ready to step foot in the House again to search? Could they even manage that...? Urgh.]

[Well, it's not like they have any way to the House right now! Still a hypothetical.]

They'd fetch a decent profit.

[ It's just a fun little hypothetical for Odile too, really. Even if she is probably the party member who'd go to such ideas first...well, she's got far more pressing concerns back in Dormont than looting. Her financial straits aren't that dire. ]

What, like "buy a souvenir of the King's defeat from the Saviors of Vaugarde"...?

That's one way to fund your traveling!

He may as well be good for something.

[ Selfishly and pettily, she's glad the King being from the island hasn't conferred some sort of...sentimentality onto him in Siffrin's eyes. Of course, he's probably killed them a fair bit...let's not think about that right now actually!

(She's gonna think about it.) ]

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