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"Sometimes I wonder why we were chosen for this ... "
Dragon does his best to make a noise Smiallar to a sigh. Though it comes out more like a static blip.
"Huh? 0-0. I thought it was obvious. We just happened to be the ones there, and it's easier for us to "help" with these's "sinners"."
Ace strides over to where Dragon is, having sat down in a pile of snow.
"It's a shame that you have a face horn. I can't touch your face like we used to. D:"
Ace is completely gone. He belongs to the stars. Dragon still has something left, and that part wants to say something but ...
It's just something instinctual to reply.
"It's the form Sirius gave me to survive. This is-"
Dragon pauses. Oh god.
Stop trying to think about it. Stop-
"Well, at least be glad I still have a head."
Good. Good topic change.
"Oooh yeah. Supposedly that "Father" guy is a demon."
Ace extends his longer legs out, making it kinda look like he just. Fell on the floor.
"Honestly, he kinda treated Jacob the same way we treat our protostars that never had their impressions tainted. Kind. Warm. Welcoming. Loving."
Calling yourselves warm when the frostbite nibs at any senses ...
Well, in hypothermia, in a last ditch ampet, it sometimes causes the body to feel warm ...
"But he was a liar! > _<! He simply wanted another body to use! Not to truly welcome him into something greater! But the poor boy was already in too deep, and the grip on his mind must have been so strong ... So he took the shotgun and ... "
Ace brings a arm up, points a finger at his head, and...
"BOOM! Headshot. A mind removed. Now a barely thinking corpse puppeted by someone who he thinks loves him."
"Isn' that just what we are, though ...? "
He says that, he thinks that, and Ace starts ranting about how that's not the case and their different and-
It's so fuzzy and blurry and-
"Zach."
Ace seems to be looking face to face.
Holding him.
"You can let go. You don't need to feel guilty for me anymore. Let it fade to stardust ... "
Guilt ... There was something ...
Oh yeah!
"I know, but it's not that simple." Dragon shakes his head. "But uh. Talking about this reminded me of some information I did firque out. I just didn't have the memories to connect it "
"Oh?"
Ace seems ecstatic.
........
"He goes by Detective. His name is Lucas. He feels quite a lot of guilt for Jacobs beheading, you know?"
There's this odd, unplaced engry that can't be quite well explain, but it's almost like the two stopped forming thoughts to talk, and more to exchange this information.
Less as thinking beings and more as cogs of a machine ...
" ... That ... Place ... All those people ...
We can let them free. Let them look at the night sky and be stuck no longer.
And for Lucas ... He deserves a life without pain, too."
It's cultist. It's mavituplive. It's ...
Watching and waiting and doing whatever it takes.
But they know full well what they are doing.
It's just that only shadows of who they were remaining, as a part of this massive machine.
One of the only few differences between then and that boy?
The Stars do cause them to live in dream states when they aren't needed, problemless, and stressless.
That boy doesn't have that.
"Jacob wouldn't resist, anyways."
"I'd be more worried about that demon then Jacob himself. We can scoop up what remains of his mind."
"HAHAHAHA! You think it get pissed if we do save that poor child?"
"I'd die to see that, haha."
"Nah, you wouldn't be allowed to die."
"Well, it be easier if we help Lucas out, you know? Then he can put in the word for all of us."
"We just gotta wait for when that group heads out of the bunker again."
"I wonder if he knows about the corrupt footage on his camrea..."
"Oh? You got something?"
"More like... casting shadows apon it..."
...
I wonder.
Does Detective himself know that his guilt for another has brought something seeking to exploit it, outside of what he's used to?
I suppose that's up for you to decide.