savetheearth | Voice (via grasshopper candroid)

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Voice (via grasshopper candroid)

[There's a brief moment of silence before Eugene starts talking. He tells what follows in the same voice that he used to use to tell bedtime stories to his daughter.]

Once upon a time, about eight hundred years ago, in a foreign land in the Black Forest, there was a king named Owes who had a Desire-filled Soul. He wanted to become a god. He bade his alchemist to create life using medals and so they did, making colored medals in sets of ten. But the medals didn't come to life because they were complete in their sets. So the king took from every set of medals the tenth medal and the rest sprang to life, becoming the Greed: beings of living unquenchable desire.

The king then turned his alchemists into silver medals, cell medals, and from his Greed he took more of their colored core medals. The king had a magic belt and he used the belt and the medals he took from the greed to become all-powerful. With it he could fly. He could turn into water and back. He could duplicate himself manifold times. He could make the earth shake by stomping. He could glow brighter than the sun.

The Greed were unhappy at this theft. Together they vowed to take back their medals and the king's magic belt. And so they fought the king until finally they had him at their mercy. Or so they thought, for the Red Greed, the Bird Greed, had been the king's ally all along and he had led them into a trap. But the king himself had played the Red Bird false and so he took more and more of the medals, thirty medals strong, for he was determined to devour them and their power, a king become a god.

It was not to be. The power was too great for the king and he became a stone coffin full of medals, his magic belt the seal. And so it is there in that coffin that the Great King Owes and his Greed slumber eternally, dreaming their dreams of desire.

[Eugene is quiet for another moment.]

After the lighter bugs attacked our kitchen, I remembered that story. I feel like I heard it decades ago when I was a small boy, that the story itself is something very important to me, that it's a true story.

I don't think it's a story my parents ever told me.

I wanted to tell it to all of you before I forgot it.

[Another brief pause.] I'll be leaving for Japan the day after tomorrow. I found out a few days ago that my uncle--my mother's brother--was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He's unmarried and childless. I volunteered to care for him until... until he doesn't need anyone to anymore. I've spent the last few days making preparations so that business doesn't suffer for my absence. You'll still get your birthday cakes. I left instructions for that and I'm sure Shiro will see it happens if nothing else.

I know once we leave Locke City we forget about the Secret Numbers Club. I will miss you all. I hope that you will still all be here when I come back.

[OOC: I'm having to drop, but I'm still going to be replying here and backtagging my old posts. I'd like to come back someday, though, when life is less hectic and I can handle a fast game again.]

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Boss... I'll miss ya. Thanks for letting me be your apprentice. I'll send you letters, alright? Not about the numbers club, because you won't believe me, but about the bakery.

I'll be sure a birthday is never missed!

I'll miss you too, Shiro. Of all the apprentices I've had, I think you're my favorite.

[He totally left standing instructions to the store manager that the next time an assistant manager job opened up it should go to Shiro. And that if he had sudden or unexplained absences it would be for a reason and he wasn't to be fired for them.]

That... means a lot to me. Come back when you can, ok?

[BOSSSSUUUUU ;A;]

As soon as I can.

[TAKE CARE OF THE BAKERY FOR HIM, SHIRO.]

Good. You promise!

[It'll be JUST LIKE HIS OWN BABY]

...that's a strange story.

[Not stupid. Not dumb. Not senseless. Not crazy. Strange. Takayuki's usual desire to snark at weird network things hasn't reared up. This is... he's not sure what it is.

Probably just getting emotional, hearing such a serious goodbye. Yeah. That's it.]

We'll try not to wreck the place in your absence, yeah?

[There. Humor. That ought to cover things up nicely.]

But a true one. I'm quite sure of it.

[With a bit more good humor.] Try not to let the enemy destroy my bakery. They already got my kitchen.

I believe you. That's what makes it strange.

[But yeah, humor was much easier to focus on.] I bet you'll get a whole pile of people lining up to guard it. Who doesn't like cake? Heh.

[This gets some of the old booming cheer back.] No one! Because there is NOTHING more magnificent than cake!

[Woah, okay, that's loud. Takayuki cringes away from the receiver with a faint hiss.]

Not when you'd put it like that, no. Heh. Maybe cake and ice cream?

[Not a lot of humor in that 'heh'. But he's trying.]

[That's quite a story you have there, Eugene. However...]

Heeeh, I'll miss your cakes too.

[Ah well, it happens. People come and go as they say. There's nothing he can do about it. For now, he can only send his farewells.]

Ne, do take care on your trip! Maybe I'll send an e-mail or two to you while you're there.

I'd like that, Al! I'll see about bring you back a souvenir!

[Considering what he knows about himself so far, Shuji isn't quite sure he's not this king full of betrayal. The story sounds far too close to things he can remember experiencing and items he's started to acquire. But, more than anything...]

I believe your story. Is that all you remember?

[His mode of communication is fairly predictable, Eugene. You might be able to figure out it's him already.]

[It takes a little while for Eugene to get back to him. He has to verify the kanji he doesn't know with Mort.]

For now. You're the man with the hawk candroid, aren't you?

[He mostly just uses hiragana to reply. It's kind of sad.]

Edited 2013-07-30 04:36 (UTC)

[Then, about half an hour later:]

The Greeds were different colors. Different animals. But the only one I know is the Red Bird.

Edited 2013-07-30 04:39 (UTC)

[It's a force of habit, but he'll respond in English now. By the time he checks for the message, he's already received the second reply.]

Yes. That's who I am.

Do you think the red bird is a hawk?

[It takes a while for the return text to come. Eugene had got the story as just that: a memory of a story, very much like the one he'd told them. The memory wasn't much more detailed.]

Like your can robot? Maybe. Sometimes. But I think he was just birds. All birds.

I have a silver medal, a cell medal. I found it in the cash drawer when I got my numbers.

[Shuji isn't sure he wants to admit this next part but...]

I think I have one of those colored medals.

[And the belt he gained? He's not going to notice it until later.]

[Cinderella begins tuning in because the voice catches her attention. The story told barely leaves an impression in her mind - she's doing the listening equivalent of skimming, enough to expect she'll know it if she hears something really abnormal. It registers to her as no different than a bedtime story, however much she ought to know better by now.

The interesting part comes after the story, then.

And her jaw starts to hang open. She isn't disease-minded, but she gets the point - poignantly.]

Oh...

Oh, my.

[The pony who speaks is at a loss for words. All this sort of thing happens, anyone has to know, but the announced departure of someone who she has nothing but fond feelings and associations toward, spookily solemn, and for a reason like this is jarring.

She stays blinking tongue-tied another second.] I-I don't know what to say, but do take care, of course!

Edited 2013-07-30 00:14 (UTC)

[Such a good pony friend.]

Don't worry, Cinderella. I will. And when I am home again, I'll bring you another carrot cake!

[Mort knows all about the reason Eugene is leaving. He can't argue, and they'd discussed things at length, but there is no changing the fact that he will miss his brother greatly.

He didn't know about the story. It's entirely possible that if Eugene had tried to tell him, he was distracted by his own remembrance from that evening when the bugs had set fire to everything...he tried not to think about it.]

...I don't remember Mother or Father ever telling that one...

[Eugene is going to miss him too. And... Eugene hadn't told the story that night. He'd been too busy trying to figure out if renters insurance would cover the damage to the kitchen. And once everything had been worked out with that, they'd heard the news about Uncle Toubei.]

I don't know if they did. I think--maybe?--it's like the little can robots? Something linked to the Numbers Club mystery, something we'd forget if we left Locke.

[The past week and a half has been rough on both of them, really. Mort's been unusually useless in helping out with anything related to the fire, as though whatever he saw was just that traumatic. And it was.

He looks thoughtful.]

I'll mention it somehow when you call to let me know the plane has landed safely.

[Because you are going to call him, aren't you, Eugene? You know he worries. He starts to say something else, but freezes as another hollow sensation rings out through him, and for a brief moment, he remembers standing there before a set of ten purple medals, removing one to bring them life...]

...life from a set of ten medals...Eugene, I think I remember that.

[ as azure listens to the story, she feels a little - well, off. huh. ]

That's a strange story. I'm sorry to hear about your uncle. I think you're doing a good thing.

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