video | un: Mercy

[valcurie]

Hello there! ( the image that appears is of a smiling blonde woman, healthy and bright looking, dressed now in pristine weight to present herself, projecting poise and elegance and friendly invitation to hear her out. her German Swiss accent is quite strong, though, so hopefully no-one is overly attached to their w's. ) I hope everyone is doing well this evening. I am coming onto the network to reach out to anyone I might not have been able to yet. My name is Angela Ziegler, and I am a doctor from Earth. Human, as you can see. ( a light, pleasant laugh and an even more pleasant smile ) You may also know me as Mercy. It's my agent name from when I was in service to a global peacekeeping organisation known as Overwatch.

I'm from the 21st century, so the treatment that I can offer you is science based ( a slight pause here as if she's considering one last time how to phrase this ) rather than magic based, but I have a good deal of practical experience with general medicine so there's almost nothing I haven't seen or dealt with. My expertise is in applied biotics, and I also have experience with gene therapy, prosthetics, and cybernetics, if there is anyone here who may need more specialised care. My qualifications also include emergency and trauma response so, if you ever find yourself wounded and in need of immediate attention, please do not hesitate to contact me. Think of me as personal 999 for refugees!

If you do come to me for any kind of care, I promise to do the best I can help you, while upholding all the oaths I've taken as a doctor to do no harm and to protect my patients. I'm not charging anything at this time.

And, if you'd like to humour me and help me to understand our group a bit better, I have a set of questions: do you believe you have a soul? What makes you think you do or don't have one? And is such a belief common where you're from? ( she doesn't mention religion, because it isn't strictly speaking a religious idea. she's known plenty of atheists and nay-theists who thought there was something beyond intelligence that made people paramount to other species. whether they called this unique internal animating light a soul or not, it didn't really matter. )

Comments

[daemonized]

Just because I call them gods does not mean I hold any particular reverence for them. Certainly no more than most.

[A noise of amusement, though wry.]

It was a gift to the Lucis Caelum line. The royal line. So that they may more easily protect the Crystal bestowed upon the world, as well.

[But now they're getting into more complexities that he's not sure she's at all interested in. A wave of a hand.]

An item of powerful magic. Since I know you'll ask.

[valcurie]

( Giving this a moment's consideration, she shrugs. ) Which is why I am surprised. You don't seem like the kind to put a lot of stock in them. But what else would you call them? In my world 'god' has a lot of baggage. Your world must be different. Perhaps because they actually exist.

( That's...quite a name. She smiles to herself, a slight derisive curve to the smile. ) Hah, because heaven itself shown its light down upon the dynasty? ( She waves her hand...at the device, yes. ) Is the crystal some promise to protect the world as well? 'So long as it remains protected, so shall you.' Something like that.

[daemonized]

You misunderstand me. I put stock in their existence, yes, but little more than that. They've made their own mistakes, which they should indeed be held accountable for, in my humble opinion. And so -- if it pleases the both of us -- let us merely call them astrals instead.

[Her dismissive tone might be offensive to others from Eos, but not at all to Ardyn. His smile is thin, but perhaps for reasons unsaid.]

In a way, yes. It was initially granted to stop the halt of the Starscourge, a disease which plagued many throughout Eos. Though it does provide magic for that one particular dynasty, so that they may protect and aid others with it.

[valcurie]

( nodding in agreement, if not also in concurrence. ) Works for me, Ardyn. Especially if they have made mistakes. Usually--from where I'm from, at least--infallibility is considered a pretty basic criteria for actual godhood. Not needing to prove yourself, et cetera, et cetera. Astrals sound much more--down to earth.

( these names though... at least the elven names were foreign enough for her to not think they sound like something out of a cliché fantasy. ) Are there any other such artefacts? Or just the one? I imagine it's something that people try to steal, either way.

[daemonized]

[Sorry for Final Fantasy naming conventions, Angela.

Ardyn considers it for a moment.]

Just the one, or rather, the only one that truly matters. And you're right about attempted thievery; we've a whole war ongoing, circling around the retrieval of said Crystal.

Well, we did at any rate. Hardly any of it matters now, wouldn't you say?

[valcurie]

( as if she's one to talk, though, really.

in turn, she gives what he's said some thought. after a few moments with her hand on her chin, her head tilted just ever so much to the left: )

I think it depends on what kind of trouble you think it might bring. Was this ring stolen by someone specific? If it really can cause a lot of trouble and it's in the thief's hands, it might be worth looking into keeping an eye on their pod. ( here comes a very, very noticeable pause. she's mulling over whether this is information she should be sharing. it's vague enough, though, so in the end she decides, why not? ) From what I have seen, the Natha my not necessary know what is rightfully whose. Or what should be theirs.

[daemonized]

The ring itself is where it belongs for now. On the finger of royalty itself. No one else would be able to use it anyway -- the last man who tried died. The one before that? Lost his arm.

[No big deal.] No, it's the Crystal that the Empire wanted. Power for power's sake.

How do you know the Natha are ignorant about what belongs to whom?

[valcurie]

Well, that royal better keep track of it then. Sometimes people need to be protected from themselves.

( Not that people who tried to use something like that weren't asking for it. Really. Who wouldn't know better than to meddle with something like god-gifted artefacts? She shakes her head, then, and his question throws her off just enough that she doesn't think to ask what Empire he's talking about. Because that sounds like something that might have a chancellor. )

I've seen people with things they shouldn't have.

[daemonized]

[It wouldn't have been an incorrect assumption. A chancellor of an empire, indeed, even if that empire crumbled in darkness. Much like the rest of the world as they knew it.]

People you know?

[Prying, prying.]

[valcurie]

People I'm sure you probably don't know.

( haha, she's aware enough to not just come out with it. plus, if she's being honest? she doesn't trust him enough. )

[daemonized]

Hm.

[Well, that's fair enough. While it would be good to know, even Ardyn must admit that such knowledge would not prove very beneficial to him now, only to sate his curiosity, little more. There are many implications there -- of objects of worth being tossed about where they may not belong -- but he keeps that to himself.

The slightest shift in topic, while keeping it relatively the same regardless. A talent of his, to be sure.]

Do you have many from your world here?

[valcurie]

There are four of us, myself included, that I know of.

( There's a fifth who could be, but she isn't sure. Whatever else she is, she's not a liar. )

More than you?

[daemonized]

There are five of us, though that is also including myself.

[She can relate to having others from her world here too, then. Yet Ardyn highly doubts the... dynamic is quite the same as his.]

Comfort in familiarity, most would say.

[valcurie]

And are you like most, Ardyn?

( she does too, honestly. and her tone comes with a considered mirth, as she does notice the particular way he phrases things. he does, in some ways, still resemble a politician. )

[daemonized]

[She uncannily pays attention to his word choice. More so than most would even bother to.

He supposes a sliver of straightforwardness is deserved, in that case.]

Not at all.

[valcurie]

( aww, she'd be somewhat tickled, if she knew. she's just used to as a baseline to carefully parsing what people say since there's a lot a patient can reveal with what they actually say. and sometimes a doctor has to be really good at filling in the gaps, when working with taciturn soldier types. )

Hmm. Well. ( a pause, as though actually considering this. ) There are a lot of things between comfortable, and enmity. I'll go with it probably being one of those.

[daemonized]

[Enmity would be the correct answer, actually.]

It's quite complicated. Whatever differences we had between us, very little of it matters now. With Eos gone, motivations have shifted accordingly.

Is it not the same for you and your compatriots?

[valcurie]

( he gets a fully cocked head at that, the use of the word compatriot seeming odd to her though she can't quite think why. honestly, she doesn't think it is really as easy as he says it is. though the world has ended, humans are notoriously, unfathomably stubborn and set in their ways. )

Are those their words, or yours?

As for us...well. When the closest bonds break, sometimes something irrevocable happens. ( she's not saying they aren't her family still, but...the damage has been done, lessons have been learnt. )

[daemonized]

[He uses the word compatriots to judge her reaction to it. Her response has him thinking that it is indeed a bit more complicated than that.]

The words are mine, but it doesn't make them any less true. We are all wayward souls now, looking for meaning in a world that isn't ours.

[He considers her admission.] Was their a misunderstanding between all of you?

[valcurie]

No. We just made different decisions about how to handle something inevitable.

( she can't know for sure if that's really how he sees all of this, or himself--as a lost soul now, adrift, searching for renewed purpose--but it's a sentiment she actually wholeheartedly agrees with. besides just wanting to help people now, she has it as something like a goal to make this a good world to live in, for the people who wake up after them, and the natives too. beyond some of her friends she doesn't really have many awakenings to look forward to personally, so any good she does do, really is more or less because it's the right thing to do.

this her purpose, found. )

Would you humour me and tell me, what meaning are you looking for, Ardyn? What would make you fulfilled?

[daemonized]

[That is a question in which Ardyn is not sure he wants to answer in all of his honesty. For that delves deep into motivations that he doesn’t wish to share with just anyone — even if the answer writhes within him, loud and clawing at his insides.

Fulfillment on Eos had meant a giant middle finger to the gods, a world decaying and cracking at the edges after being blanketed in darkness and daemons. Fulfillment meant the end of his family line, including himself. Fulfillment meant finally a chance to rest, and for the cycle of the Starscourge — one way or another — to have finally ended. To be crushed under destiny's heel, as prophesied.

But here, now none of that applies. How does he even begin to answer that question?]

Nothing, I think.

[With the truth, of a sort.]

[valcurie]

Are you unable to die, too?

( a simple question, and her tone is filled with an oddly wistful sympathy. she's meet another immortal here, and it's hard to believe that immortality actually exists, but she'd what she'd seen, thanks to a privileged glimpse into his past allowed by his magic. for as incomprehensible as immortality is, the unfathomable loss of the ability to remember what it felt like to be happy--that was even harder to get her mind around.

she'd ask if it's peace he wants, but it seems like that's beyond the reach of such men. )

[daemonized]

[A simple question that carries So Much baggage for a man like Ardyn. The way she makes the connection so quickly has his smile faltering for a fraction of a second, something stilling in his features, before it resumes as normal.]

That would be correct. How insightful you are.

[There's little point in hiding it, at any rate.]

[valcurie]

( based on that reaction alone, though it's not much more than a glimmer, the most minuscule of possible loosenings, she thinks she can infer this: he's another immortal for whom his state is a curse. )

Hmm. I'd think it's fair to say, you are probably more so. ( a small huff of a sigh. ) What a life you must have had.

Were there many like you?

[daemonized]

[Oh, he actually laughs at that. At the idea of there being more than one as cursed as he. What a terrible fate for Eos that would've been.]

I assure you, doctor, that I am one-of-a-kind.