Be brave enough to burn

[notsogreedy]

Who: All the Alices (and Ankh, his name is Ankh)
What: Just a mysterious castle built on top of a restaurant. What could possibly go wrong?
Where: World Two – Wings to the Sky
Warnings: Who even knows? Will update as necessary.



Ankh wakes up at the edge of the water, his arm draped over a rock and his face cushioned by a bed of sand and seaweed as the edges of waves wash over his body. The first thing he notices upon waking is that it's uncomfortable. The second, upon lifting his head and starting to pull himself out of the water is that it's familiar. Awareness dawning, he scrambles to his feet and looks around wide-eyed half expecting Eiji to be there somewhere. Of course he isn't.

But this... this is his last memory. For a moment he wonders if somehow this whole thing came to an end and he wound up back home, but that's wishful thinking. No, this is just his world. His heart, as the guides like to call it. It's only more obvious that this isn't real as he scans the horizon and finds Cous Coussier where it shouldn't be. And then on top of it... that's-

His eyes widen, and then narrow. He's not sure what to expect out of this other than nothing good.

But, after wringing the water out of his clothes as best he can, he makes his way to the restaurant and curiously to the freezer, where he finds the ice pops he expects to be there. Pulling one out, he gives it a skeptical look for a moment—does he dare assume it's really the same or even safe to eat?--but ultimately pops it into his mouth and discovers it tastes exactly like he expects. That much is something he can appreciate. But as for the rest of this...

With popsicle in hand, he continues exploring.

Comments

please bear with me if I'm slow!

[zinit]

[A beach... Alright, he can handle this. (Or, well, he'd be a lot better at handling this if there weren't sand in his beard.) Unfortunately, there's no time to go exploring the native flora and fauna; he's got to find out what kind of puzzles this heart has for him.]

[So through the restaurant he goes, then up to the castle. (What a weird layout, he thinks, ignoring that the Zinit had an even weirder layout.) He picks a door at random, opens it, and finds:]

An office... [But it's the windows that get his attention.]

Fifth Puzzle Found

[worldkeys]

[ When Qilby steps inside the office, he will notice that it is mostly normal, if a bit modernized for being in an old castle. There is a large grand piano, as well as a station to... make cakes inside it. There is also a gramophone on a table near some chairs, that... only plays the happy birthday song. It isn't playing when he enters, at least, not at first. ... But aside from that... normality, there are five stained glass windows that all depict Qilby. Only one of them is accurate to who he truly is, however.

Nearly all the windows seem to carry some sort of theme of greenery or technology and test tubes in the background, as well as space being featured in some form, either in monitors or as the 'sky'. The first window depicts Qilby standing over a dragon's corpse, although he doesn't look too broken up about it. He appears to be walking away from it in this picture, and smiling. There is blood on his clothes, making it noticable that, perhaps, he may have been involved in the dragon's death. The second window depicts him sitting alone on a hillside surrounded by lush greenery and various flowers. He is playing some manner of board game by himself, and seems to be thoroughly enjoying the lack of company. The third one displays him talking with an older figure's silhouette and shrugging. The figure stands next to a vacant throne, and Qilby appears to be facing away from it. Yet another window displays Qilby by himself, surrounded by the hands of many others similar to his own. The background is filled with flames and destruction, the greenery and technology present in other backgrounds now destroyed. The hands are all an arm's length away from him. The sky shows not blue, but the cosmos itself. In his hands is a cube-shaped object. His eyes are shadowed, and he has a thin smile on his face. The final stained glass window depicts Qilby as a hologram-like projection, distorted and corrupting. The lab around it is decaying and falling apart, as if abandoned or purposefully left unkempt. Various test tubes are broken with fluid leaking out of them, and all sorts of sensitive equipment appears to be malfunctioning.

He will find that he can tell everyone except Ankh which window is accurate and which ones are not. He won't even be able to point to the correct one or mimic it in drawing in Ankh's presence, nor will anyone else who knows. ]

[zinit]

[This wasn't supposed to be his heart. It brings up thoughts of how their hearts might be connected while they're here; are they linked in some way?]

[But, looking at these, he can't seem to focus on that. He can only think of home (some home it was), of family (family that's forsaken him), of the Krosmoz. He thinks of how the Eliacube felt in his hand that first time, pulsing and alive, and how disturbing it is that he can't remember what came before.]

[(He remembers those few happy years spent on the Zinit, though. It'll have to do.)]

[The others: speaking to Chibi by his empty throne, a disturbing picture of him with the Eliacube (and isolated, of course), manolias on their homeworld, the labs he left in the Zinit... And yet his eyes keep wandering to the crafted image of Shinonome's corpse. He misses her more than anything, his sister, his other half--]

[And without thought, he finds himself stepping to that image, pressing his hand and then his forehead to it for a long moment. In a low voice, meant only for himself, he mutters:] Shinonome, sister, I'll be with you soon.

[notsogreedy]

[Ankh doesn't hear the words, but when he comes into the room, Qilby has yet to move away from that window. He can sense the desire for someone else's presence, presumably inspired by the image on that window if the way Qilby is leaning against it is any indication.]

I guess that picture means something to you.

[He won't ask if it's right. He's seen enough by now to know he won't get an answer to that.]

[zinit]

[Qilby lifts his forehead from the window and turns; there's no urgency in his movements. (He's not getting killed here, after all.) Ah, it's mister bad hair - the one whose heart it is. The one with the underwear.]

[He sighs and nods to the window. Every time he thinks to say 'there's no way that's a reality' - because even if he was the cause of her death, indirectly, it wasn't him and it tears him apart - his throat closes. Instead, he just says:]

The dragon it shows here - she's my twin sister. [See the resemblance?? No, because she's a dragon.]

[notsogreedy]

[He raises an eyebrow at that. The thing in the picture is obviously a dragon, and Qilby is obviously not. Then again, Ankh isn't really a Greeed in here, either.]

You're not human, then. [It's a question, even if it doesn't sound like one.]

[zinit]

Hah, of course not. [Qilby says it with a little bit of pride, as though it should be obvious. Humans are short-lived and powerless, and his people are neither of those things!]

[There's a little smile coming back to his face as he continues.] My people are called Eliatropes, and we are blessed to have close bonds with dragons. A few of us, the first-born, are born from the same egg as a dragon 'twin.' Shinonome and I were two of those first-born.

[notsogreedy]

[He replies with a vague sound of acknowledgement. It's an odd origin, but his own is, too. It's really not that interesting. He glances at the windows, realising he has very little to go on here... aside from a guess that the window Qilby is at isn't accurate. It looks like he killed the dragon there, but Ankh can read Qilby's feelings on the subject. Enough to think it doesn't fit.]

And you're a scientist, if all this stuff means anything. [He gestures vaguely to the various lab equipment all over the windows, then more specifically to the one with the box.] What's that? Some kind of experiment?

Re: Fifth Puzzle Found

[notsogreedy]

[This is the last one before he gets down to only having Sebastian's left. He's not sure what he's going to do then, but for now, he smashes the window that's marked, the one with the cube.]

Puzzle: Solved

[worldkeys]

[ As with all the others, when the mirror shatters, so does Qilby. He will awaken near the Rabbit in the hub, aware of his painless death. Where he stood is yet another medal. Another batch of memories returns to Ankh, and this time, he loses his sight. However, he will still be able to "see." Like with the sense of hearing, he's aware that he's not really seeing anything, and it's more like he's sensing everything to transmit a decent black-and-white image to his brain--like a very old TV, with an blurry picture. A fifth light will brighten on the lock. ]

[frozentear]

[Sebastian comes into the room some time after Ankh has left, holding out a pen.]

Hey. Take this and mark the window that's true so that we can leave faster.

[zinit]

[Qilby looks to Sebastian - ah, he hadn't thought this one was particularly important; he might have to revise that mentally - and takes the pen.]

A good plan... If I knew exactly which one of these was the truth. More than one of them might be.

[He pushes up his glasses and looks at the window again. It's partially a show; he doesn't particularly want to mark the one he thinks is the truth. --But, then, would it mean anything to them even if he did?]

[frozentear]

[Well... that's reasonable enough, but it'll get them nowhere.]

I had the same issue, and it's probably whichever one is least questionable. If you're really not sure, though, mark all the ones that might be true.

[zinit]

[Ah, hell with it. It won't mean anything to anyone anyway, and it's not like these people are sworn allies. Enough of them have already tried to kill him. Maybe it's time to take the kid gloves off...]

Then... [He steps forward and places a sweeping mark over the window that pictures him with the Eliacube, eyes shadowed.]

[(The mark's putting a slash right through the second-shortest arm surrounding him, which seems to have a turquoise glove on its hand. HATE NEVER DIES)]

[frozentear]

[.......Weeeell that's a particularly creepy window, and he wonders for a moment if this guy is an evil wizard.

...Anyway, that doesn't matter right now. The window's taken care of.]

Thanks for doing that. [He'll hold out his hand to take the pen back.]

[zinit]

[Well... Yes.]

You're quite welcome. [Qilby hands the pen back to Sebastian delicately, then turns his back to all the windows and hums.]

It makes one wonder how our hearts might be connected, if these sorts of puzzles are showing up in somebody else's. --The marker - was it your idea?

[frozentear]

It could be part of why we're all here, or an effect of it.

And yeah, it was. Ankh can't read it if you try writing which one is correct, and you can't tell him, but he can see it if you mark the window directly.