"I'm doing this because you'd absolutely hate the cliche."
Scooting a chair up to the side of the bed, she plunks down onto it, settling herself in for a wait. Yeah, she can do this. Sit here until something happens, one way or the other. Avatars can go get food for her and stuff. She'll take a break occasionally just to tempt the world into having him wake up the second she turns her back, too, of course.
There are too many cliches. Like the treasure sword.
As if she'd ever make the memories she values most into an Avatar. Even if he had immediately called her a plagiarist yet again, that bastard.
I told you. In the end, the cliche won.
Her wait isn't idle, though. She watches the pulsing of his stories, slipping out and stitching back, and wonders what it all means. Her own stories are silent. Predictive Plagiarism can't make sense of a scenario that operates under no laws she understands. Guide of the Line Spacing doesn't work on the blank page that ends one chapter and begins another. But this is the end of a chapter, she's certain of that. The question is, will another one follow?
The cliche was subverted. This is what usually happens.
Is this because she'd declared herself the Labyrinth's enemy? Because she'd pushed back against its bad endings, and untwisted the stories it had tried to twist? Or is it truly a mindless being of instinct, with no conscious thought or reaction, merely dipping its metaphorical fingers into the well of stories brought to it and swirling because that stimulates some primal instinct inside of it? Is this just the monkey's paw curling, her wish on coming here every bit as futile and self-destructive as the last effort they'd all made for him?
Do you want me to help you?
(And then he'd sucker-punched her and taken her flag AND the sword. If that memory doesn't sum it all up, what would?)
Is this her fault?
There's nothing she can do right now. What knowledge of story repair she possesses doesn't apply to damage like this. And even if it were, she enough isn't alone to do it. Knowing him as well as she does, maybe better than anyone does, she knows perfectly well how incomplete her knowledge is. Everyone would need to be here, to put the story of Kim Dokja back together again.
If I take the hands-off approach here, the idiot you and Yu Junghyeok will probably go around doing dumb things and mess up the scenario, instead… So.
"Idiot."
…Just like you said, I do not know Han Suyeong.
"You didn't understand even at the very end."
That is why I definitely can't let her go.
"What are you going to put me through this time?
You see, I haven't heard the conclusion of this story from her yet.
"You're a terrible writer. You should stick to reading. Let me write the endings, damn it."
...Her 50 years would've become even longer, you know.
"If you make me wait again, I'll kill you, you know."
I didn't want to extend her 50 years by even one minute if I could help it.
"How did you make it work in your head? Hating how long I had to endure, then making a misery out of the rest of my life?"
Hey, Kim Dokja!
"How are you so stupid!?"
Everything's screwed up because of you!
"Everything's screwed up because of you!"
She drops her head into her folded arms with a low groan, anger and frustration and despair and grief all tangled up in proportions she can't measure and knots she can't unravel. Maybe she'll fall asleep like this, and he can wake up to the most cliche scene ever, and hate it, and things will feel a little bit better.
Until then...
[THE CONSTELLATION, ARCHITECT OF THE FALSE LAST ACT, IS LOOKING AT YOU.]
She'll watch.
[THE CONSTELLATION, ARCHITECT OF THE FALSE LAST ACT, IS WAITING FOR YOU.]
And wait.
[THE CONSTELLATION, ARCHITECT OF THE FALSE LAST ACT, WILL WAIT FOR YOU, AS LONG AS IT TAKES.]
Unlike some constellations she can name, she isn't going anywhere.
[THE CONSTELLATION, ARCHITECT OF THE FALSE LAST ACT, IS HERE WITH YOU.]
[THE CONSTELLATION, ARCHITECT OF THE FALSE LAST ACT, IS HERE WITH YOU.]
[THE CONSTELLATION, ARCHITECT OF THE FALSE LAST ACT, IS HERE WITH YOU.]
[THE CONSTELLATION, ARCHITECT OF THE FALSE LAST ACT, IS HERE WITH YOU.]
[THE CONSTELLATION, ARCHITECT OF THE FALSE LAST ACT, IS HERE WITH YOU.]
[THE CONSTELLATION, ARCHITECT OF THE FALSE LAST ACT, IS HERE WITH YOU.]
no subject
Scooting a chair up to the side of the bed, she plunks down onto it, settling herself in for a wait. Yeah, she can do this. Sit here until something happens, one way or the other. Avatars can go get food for her and stuff. She'll take a break occasionally just to tempt the world into having him wake up the second she turns her back, too, of course.
As if she'd ever make the memories she values most into an Avatar. Even if he had immediately called her a plagiarist yet again, that bastard.
Her wait isn't idle, though. She watches the pulsing of his stories, slipping out and stitching back, and wonders what it all means. Her own stories are silent. Predictive Plagiarism can't make sense of a scenario that operates under no laws she understands. Guide of the Line Spacing doesn't work on the blank page that ends one chapter and begins another. But this is the end of a chapter, she's certain of that. The question is, will another one follow?
Is this because she'd declared herself the Labyrinth's enemy? Because she'd pushed back against its bad endings, and untwisted the stories it had tried to twist? Or is it truly a mindless being of instinct, with no conscious thought or reaction, merely dipping its metaphorical fingers into the well of stories brought to it and swirling because that stimulates some primal instinct inside of it? Is this just the monkey's paw curling, her wish on coming here every bit as futile and self-destructive as the last effort they'd all made for him?
(And then he'd sucker-punched her and taken her flag AND the sword. If that memory doesn't sum it all up, what would?)
Is this her fault?
There's nothing she can do right now. What knowledge of story repair she possesses doesn't apply to damage like this. And even if it were, she enough isn't alone to do it. Knowing him as well as she does, maybe better than anyone does, she knows perfectly well how incomplete her knowledge is. Everyone would need to be here, to put the story of Kim Dokja back together again.
"Idiot."
"You didn't understand even at the very end."
"What are you going to put me through this time?
"You're a terrible writer. You should stick to reading. Let me write the endings, damn it."
"If you make me wait again, I'll kill you, you know."
"How did you make it work in your head? Hating how long I had to endure, then making a misery out of the rest of my life?"
"How are you so stupid!?"
"Everything's screwed up because of you!"
She drops her head into her folded arms with a low groan, anger and frustration and despair and grief all tangled up in proportions she can't measure and knots she can't unravel. Maybe she'll fall asleep like this, and he can wake up to the most cliche scene ever, and hate it, and things will feel a little bit better.
Until then...
She'll watch.
And wait.
Unlike some constellations she can name, she isn't going anywhere.