idolpro | Shrike's Heart (#3)

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!heart games

Shrike's Heart (#3)

The woman before you is beautiful—fair of features, with lovely golden skin and luxurious long black hair, petite. You have the immediate and distinct impression that she's just let go of your hand, and she steps back, and smiles.

It's not quite a happy smile.

"I'm sorry," she says. "There's just nothing I can do, as things are. But the way is there; it just needs to be lit."

You open your mouth—maybe to say something, or to express confusion—but you have to cough, and taste something metallic, spattering black blood onto the ground in front of you. Then you realize—blood seeps from opening wounds in your arms, your chest, your stomach, your face. It rims your eyes and trails from your nose and you feel like you're dissolving—

—and you fall through the ground like it's the surface of a lake, and go down, down, down.

> Wake Up

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ you spend 1 WILLPOWER to keep sassing this woman. ]

This is my home. I built everything here, and it belongs to me. This nonsense [she gestures at the room ] is an unwanted distraction. Clean it up or go. Or I will make you leave.

[ you must spend 1 WILLPOWER to do other than what she tells you. ]

[ Guess it's time to just blow all his willpower arguing with a lady. ]

This is our home. The rest might be yours but here is ours. And none of us will let it be torn down.

[ How much willpower does Gold need to spend to lock her out of the room and protect this place. ]

[ i'm gonna say 5

but also i realized that this is like
a perpetual willpower generation machine

because you gain +1 WILLPOWER from committing really hard to arguing. you are now at 4.

you may do something particularly spectacular to gain two at once next round to accumulate 5 total.

the woman looks particularly taken aback to be argued with, like she isn't used to it, clearly frustrated, and she reaches back in a way that you'd normally see with someone drawing a sword—but she's not wearing it, and she scowls.

the oppressive atmosphere grows, and it feels like the room is growing smaller, and darker—or trying to, but you hold it back by holding steady. Spend +1 WILLPOWER. ]

I didn't raise her for this silliness! Playing at being knights when she was a failure of a soldier and a traitor?

[ > Spend more willpower but also what if you're also fueled by spite at the idea of someone being told they're useless. ]

[ Yelling at ladies, go. ]

So what?? Just because she didn't do what you wanted her to do doesn't make her a failure! Your path isn't the only right one, or the only one that matters. Shrike is a knight and a great one at that and she doesn't need to be a soldier or whatever else you want her to be. She can decide what she wants to be and make her own successful path!

[ You stand your ground and you fight—not with swords, but with words, because, hey, when it comes down to it, you are a normal kid.

And—as you shout, she opens her mouth to cut you off, but her voice doesn't come out as loud as before. Like someone's turned down the volume on her, and continues to turn it down—

Before long, you can't hear her at all, and her physical presence is fading, too. Ghostly, and then—gone.

There's a rustling, behind you. ]

[ Startling a little at the sound, turning to face it. ]

[ A girl emerges from under a pile of blankets and pillows, where she must have been sitting incredibly still—she can't have been there before, could she? She's young but not quite small—the same nut-brown skin and mahogany hair as the woman, and looking faintly bewildered. ]

...she's gone?

[ ... Was she there the whole time?? Good thing Gold didn't start swearing I guess... ]

Ah- yeah. I think so. For now anyway.

[ the girl looks faintly bewildered. she seems to be maybe twelve or so, though she's a bit of a beanpole. ]

I just wanted...

...is it bad of me to want to stay here?

I don't think so, but I don't really go here...

[ Offering her a hand to help get up. ]

You okay?

[ she tilts her head, and glances at his portrait on the wall. ]

Don't you, though?

I'm... maybe. I just... don't know what to do.

[ Following her gaze. ]

... It's complicated probably.

Well... what do you want to do?

I want...

[ she looks hesitant, and then remembers— ]

Oh! I was cooking.
...I'm not supposed to, since that's for servants, but—do you want some? If it hasn't burned.

Sure. I like eating.

Ah, here, then—

[ she skips over to the kitchen to inspect what she's left on the stove; she turns down the heat on the saucepan, and inspects what's in the pot.

now that you're looking at the kitchen, it looks like there's something peeking out from next to the refrigerator. ]

[ Gold's very familiar with Avante kitchen by this point, so he'll take a moment to glance over at whatever's next to the fridge, reaching over to grab it. ]

[ what's tucked next to the refrigerator seems to be a framed portrait—by appearances, of the girl tending to what's on the stovetop, although half of the image is obscured with black paint such that you can't see most of her face.

meanwhile, the girl is draining a pot of noodles—glass noodles, not spaghetti, and humming lightly as she stirs whatever's in the pan. ]

[ Taking out the painting and trying to see if he can wipe off the paint... ]

[ it's dry, and caked on in several layers—it seems like it's been like that for a while.

the girl doesn't notice, and then turns her head— ]

Should I put on some te—

[ ...and freezes. ]

...oh.

Oh- sorry, I found this tucked in there, I think it's been dirty for a while.

It's...

[ she looks a little guilty; like she doesn't want to look at the portrait. ]

I'm really not supposed to be here at all.

... Do you want to be here?

...well, yes, but...

[ she looks away, turns the heat off of the stove, and tidies a few stray hairs back into her bun. ]

...I'm dead. I don't exist anymore.

You exist here though, inside Shrike.

[ Looking back at the painting, trying to clean it more. ]

Even if you're dead, you can still exist here.

[ probably there's like, a sponge, or something, since this kitchen doesn't seem to understand that it's in fantasy historical southeast asia. ]

...I think I might extra not exist, though.

What goes into Oblivion doesn't come out. I'm just a memory.

Shrike's Heart (#3)

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