[ Before entering the cell, a different variable will be introduced to the experiment for both participants.
A memory is implanted in Dion. You've hungered for acceptance all your life, though that hunger isn't the only thing you've known. You were born into an outcast family and labeled a curse among curses for the inhuman bloodlust you've felt since before you even spoke your first word. Your mother and father looked at you with fear and hatred, until you could take it no longer and murdered them both. Your peers jeered and mocked you for the "accidents" that followed you through your early youth, until you snapped and killed them, too. Your first lover, dead. Your annoying neighbor, dead. Your coworker who was kind to you in just the wrong way, dead. Each body you fell brings you nothing but misery. It's just... you simply can't contain the violent impulses within you that demand you draw blood again and again. But if you die now, won't it all have been for nothing? Isn't it better to keep pressing forward, to breathe and find the love you've yet to experience? Your existence is a bloodspot in this nation, but you just can't let life go. What's one more body to your stack?
A memory is implanted in Diluc. It's just been you and your childhood friend for as long as you can remember, your parents and their deaths little more than a distant speck in your mind. Together, the two of you trudge through the reality of existing on this awful island and try to make the best of it - until he slips on the rocks one day while you're playing by the sea. He tumbles into the rough waters and you're too afraid to jump in after him, or even reach a hand out, lest he panic and pull you in, too. He screams for you once and then vanishes below the surface, never to be seen again. You've lived in guilt ever since. Everything you do is shadowed by how badly you wish you'd even tried, and how much you hate your cowardly self. Every choice you make, no matter how altruistic it seems on the surface, is just you trying to make things up to him. It's with this heavy guilt that you know you have to keep pushing forward. You owe it to yourself, and you owe it to him. You can't just lay your life down when you're living for two people now, can you?
In the cell, the following await you: a lance, a hammer, a razor wire.
But the heart isn’t so simple. The other strong feeling demanding your attention is your relationship with the person you’re in the cell with—what you know, genuinely know of them, and all the feelings that come with that.
Is emotion still worthwhile, if it will destroy you from the inside? ]
[ diluc's memories scramble again once he's forced into the ring, and a heavy sense of guilt washes over him, a cold tide dragging him to his death. feelings of shame and helplessness, but underneath all that, an unstoppable fury.
this is not who he is: he is a survivor, a drifter landed on the shores of archipele, who had clawed his way into the royal family to secure a future for himself. he's outlived the curse, hidden himself in plain sight—
that is not who he is, either: he is diluc ragnvindr, of mondstadt—
the threads of his identities tangle and fray, and all comes to a jarring halt when he sees his opponent. ]
...Dion.
[ his chest constricts with both recognition and refusal, and a feeling so fundamental it temporarily overrides the chaos in his head.
he will not hurt him.
—but he will. his body moves on instinct and programmed bloodlust. a desperation to live that doesn't belong to him, and simultaneously does. (he can't fail here. he can't let that death be meaningless. he can't, he can't, he can't—)
he's well-aware dion's combat specialty is polearms, so his first instinct is to remove that equation from the field. on a most inauspicious 4, that doesn't happen, and he'll have to settle for a hammer instead. he swings viciously at the first opportunity he finds, aiming to split the shaft of the lance in two, or at least damage it enough he can mitigate some of the clear advantage it gives dion. ]
[ Death is a constant in Dion's life. His mother had died (at his hands?) before his earliest memories. His closest peer massacred along with the rest of his countrymen. His father. His enemies. His people. There are times where he feels as though he's seen more death than there are stars in the night sky.
And death has always lingered under his skin. Not in Bahamut's light, which was terrifying and devastating, but in the curse that took root from the moment he awoke as a Dominant, eating away at him from the inside and turning his flesh to stone.
He has been dying a long time.
Perhaps that is why it's so easy to kill those around him. He's been miserable, haunted, all his life with only Death for company. This cannot be it. This cannot be all there is to living when the people of this island talk tales of love and greed and something worthwhile.
That something must be waiting. One more corpse and things can change. One more corpse, and one more day, and then maybe—
He lunges for the lance. Diluc's hammer smashes into the shaft but not with enough force to break the woods before Dion is putting distance between them. ]
Diluc. Let us make this quick.
[ He swings his lance, aiming to sever Diluc's head from his shoulders. ]
[ let this be quick—though diluc will not merciful.
he ducks the killing blow, and swings again at dion's skull, aiming to cave his head in. his other hand bears down on dion's wrist in an attempt to stop him from swinging his lance. he has to stay in close quarters—his victory depends on it.
—but pain bursts through the hand that had once been shattered, and his hold on his hammer is compromised. it won't connect the way he intends it to, whether it meets dion or not.
it doesn't stop him. he'll try to shoulder into dion instead to tackle him to the ground. pain sears through him, blinding. his head slams forward, aiming to break the other man's nose.
he won't hesitate this time. he'll end this properly. and then—
(and then what? what is he fighting for? a memory? a corpse...?) ]
[ Despite being a military man, Dion had never enjoyed violence. He didn't enjoy the thrill of battle, or of summoning Bahamut's massive form. Violence was merely a consequence of his duty, not the end to which he strived.
Until now.
Diluc is his friend. Honest, steadfast and loyal. He's gentler and kinder than his demeanour suggests, and Dion had felt privileged to learn and uncover more of him.
And now, that meant discovering the feeling of his blood hot against his hands, and the sight of life steadily leaving his eyes.
He doesn't, hadn't, ever want to hurt him. And yet— ]
Are you hesitating?
[ He doesn't flinch when the hammer slams down into his shoulder, though it forces him to shift his lance into a more defensive position, holding the length of it in front of his body like a barrier with which to ward off Diluc's tackle.
The headbutt connects with his nose, the bone crunching and blood pouring, but Dion stands his ground, heels digging into the ground into a quick turn. The deadly point of his lance comes down again, this time aiming to cut into his shoulder and render the arm useless. ]
[ diluc is not so peaceful in nature as dion. he was born with fire in his blood, warmth and destruction—gentle as candlelight illuminating the dark, violent as a blaze uncontrolled. he has had to learn how to temper that flame, but his hard-won discipline is wrest from him, replaced by false memories and impulses.
dion's spear finds purchase in his shoulder, and though it doesn't sever through enough to render it completely immobile, it summons the phantom sensation of an axe meeting it from behind—he may as well have cut off the limb entirely, for the way diluc's reliver body processes the pain. the hammer slips out of his hand as he rips himself away, and he aims his boot into dion's gut, attempting to put only enough distance between them so he can retrieve his makeshift weapon. ]
Are you?
[ he'd cut into his shoulder when he could've gone for his throat instead, and diluc will make sure he regrets that mistake.
(there are no regrets between good friends.
dion has always been unwavering against impossible odds and inescapable death. kind despite the crushing weight of his duty and all the sorrows it has brought him. diluc has never wanted to add to his burdens, or to see him further hurt.
so he will finish him here.)
the pain is unpleasant, but not nearly enough of a deterrent. his right eye twitches as the room momentarily shifts, half his reality warped with the blood-stained bodies of those he had tried to save, and failed. kaeya, shouxue, gregor, shoma, scien, yuri—he can envision dion among these faces as well, see blood spilling from the injuries he has yet to leave.
he grabs his hammer off the floor, bringing it up to parry dion's next strike, and he aims for his wrist or elbow, hoping to shatter the joint. if given enough time, he will snatch up the forgotten wire as well. ]
[ Blood spills and Diluc staggers back. The distance works in Dion's favour, taking advantage of the pause in Diluc's assault to drive his lance forward to run Diluc through, the sharp metal aiming to rip through flesh, muscle and organs.
But Diluc isn't intimidated by pain or the danger of Dion's lance. The hammer connects against his arm, it feels as though the entire limb is a rock for him to shatter.
The pain is enough to earn a small cry from him, ringing through his head as he stumbles away. If he managed to pierce through Diluc, then he'll pull his lance back with him, though his grip is so weak that Diluc could easily take it from his grasp.
He's used to pain, and it manages to claw through him anew nonetheless. Still, he laughs slightly. ]
[ dion's lance strikes true, gouging through diluc's torso with a sickening crunch of flesh, bone and viscera. blood immediately burbles from the wound, filling a punctured lung and spilling from diluc's mouth in a wretched wheeze.
and still, he is driven to fight to the bitter end. his hand clamps onto the pole of the lance despite his injuries—the effort surely exacerbating them. his grip is no stronger than dion's, but it is desperate as adrenaline floods his failing body.
both of them barely held in place, diluc will still try to use his other hand to wind the wire around dion's neck, a final attempt to sever through his windpipe. the same wire bites deep into his own palm as he tugs—
—though his strength quickly bleeds away with him. the line scratches only a shallow mark into dion's throat, and then loosens as diluc's grip goes slack and falls away. ]
...Dion.
[ it hurts to breathe. the pain is shocking, numbing. he blinks slowly, memories clambering to reach the forefront of his fading consciousness. he can barely grasp any of them. he doesn't know where he is, but he knows who he's with. ]
...I'm sorry.
[ he coughs, and more blood spills down his front.
[ The wrong memories come to the surface. The memories of someone born a curse, not a blessing. The memories of someone reviled and hated, and not someone lauded and admired. They are the memories of someone who lost the battle against impulse and violence, and went through life taking one life at a time.
(But, the memories of this person still contain far less carnage.)
And that person, thinks it's lovely when the blood gurgles out of Diluc. That person thinks the red that dribbles from his mouth and chin suits him where it turns his skin red, and soils the clothes usually so meticulously kept.
He admires Diluc's dignity, cultivated through years of wrath and tamed temper. He admires his steadfast resolve, honed into a blade after years of being a blunt hammer.
He supposes that he may as well admire him here too, in death. ]
Diluc.
[ Red lines his throat too from the shallow wound from the wire, and he staggers back once it falls away with Diluc. He watches him crumple to the ground, and sinks to his knees.
Diluc often reminded him of the Phoenix: an unwavering symbol of hope. ]
It's alright. [ He settles a hand on Diluc's shoulder to help him sit upright on the ground as best as he can. ] I'm sorry too.
[ And then he lifts the lance in his other hand, and drives it through Diluc's heart. ]
The story of all his lives, isn't it? Once, he'd been grateful, albeit burdened by guilt and haunted by the shadows of those he'd left behind. He'd been filled with regret over the things he'd never be able to do. He'd wanted to live, even if it felt selfish to move forward--to savor the present and reach for the future, grasping the end of that thread even if it meant cutting his fingers on the scissor's blade.
Now, survival feels like a curse. Sheba's blood stains his hand, and Dahut's, their cold bodies lying in the room beside him. He'd had enough of himself left to position them gently, side by side, their hands folded over their chests and their eyes closed, unless they get beheaded or something, which would be super awkward--and all he can think is that he hopes this is their last life. That they have no new vessels. That they can finally rest. It is the only thing preventing him from breaking completely.
I forgot about Scien. I guess he was nice to him too.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
MOVEMENT IV
DION & DILUC
A memory is implanted in Dion. You've hungered for acceptance all your life, though that hunger isn't the only thing you've known. You were born into an outcast family and labeled a curse among curses for the inhuman bloodlust you've felt since before you even spoke your first word. Your mother and father looked at you with fear and hatred, until you could take it no longer and murdered them both. Your peers jeered and mocked you for the "accidents" that followed you through your early youth, until you snapped and killed them, too. Your first lover, dead. Your annoying neighbor, dead. Your coworker who was kind to you in just the wrong way, dead. Each body you fell brings you nothing but misery. It's just... you simply can't contain the violent impulses within you that demand you draw blood again and again. But if you die now, won't it all have been for nothing? Isn't it better to keep pressing forward, to breathe and find the love you've yet to experience? Your existence is a bloodspot in this nation, but you just can't let life go. What's one more body to your stack?
A memory is implanted in Diluc. It's just been you and your childhood friend for as long as you can remember, your parents and their deaths little more than a distant speck in your mind. Together, the two of you trudge through the reality of existing on this awful island and try to make the best of it - until he slips on the rocks one day while you're playing by the sea. He tumbles into the rough waters and you're too afraid to jump in after him, or even reach a hand out, lest he panic and pull you in, too. He screams for you once and then vanishes below the surface, never to be seen again. You've lived in guilt ever since. Everything you do is shadowed by how badly you wish you'd even tried, and how much you hate your cowardly self. Every choice you make, no matter how altruistic it seems on the surface, is just you trying to make things up to him. It's with this heavy guilt that you know you have to keep pushing forward. You owe it to yourself, and you owe it to him. You can't just lay your life down when you're living for two people now, can you?
In the cell, the following await you: a lance, a hammer, a razor wire.
The rage in your memories is strong. This newly implanted life fights against the last life’s memory of your years in Arpéchéle and that memory still fights against the memory of your weeks on the Eudora and time in your home world. They all wrestle for dominance, but a bloodlust permeates every single feeling.
But the heart isn’t so simple. The other strong feeling demanding your attention is your relationship with the person you’re in the cell with—what you know, genuinely know of them, and all the feelings that come with that.
Is emotion still worthwhile, if it will destroy you from the inside? ]
no subject
this is not who he is: he is a survivor, a drifter landed on the shores of archipele, who had clawed his way into the royal family to secure a future for himself. he's outlived the curse, hidden himself in plain sight—
that is not who he is, either: he is diluc ragnvindr, of mondstadt—
the threads of his identities tangle and fray, and all comes to a jarring halt when he sees his opponent. ]
...Dion.
[ his chest constricts with both recognition and refusal, and a feeling so fundamental it temporarily overrides the chaos in his head.
he will not hurt him.
—but he will. his body moves on instinct and programmed bloodlust. a desperation to live that doesn't belong to him, and simultaneously does. (he can't fail here. he can't let that death be meaningless. he can't, he can't, he can't—)
he's well-aware dion's combat specialty is polearms, so his first instinct is to remove that equation from the field. on a most inauspicious 4, that doesn't happen, and he'll have to settle for a hammer instead. he swings viciously at the first opportunity he finds, aiming to split the shaft of the lance in two, or at least damage it enough he can mitigate some of the clear advantage it gives dion. ]
no subject
And death has always lingered under his skin. Not in Bahamut's light, which was terrifying and devastating, but in the curse that took root from the moment he awoke as a Dominant, eating away at him from the inside and turning his flesh to stone.
He has been dying a long time.
Perhaps that is why it's so easy to kill those around him. He's been miserable, haunted, all his life with only Death for company. This cannot be it. This cannot be all there is to living when the people of this island talk tales of love and greed and something worthwhile.
That something must be waiting. One more corpse and things can change. One more corpse, and one more day, and then maybe—
He lunges for the lance. Diluc's hammer smashes into the shaft but not with enough force to break the woods before Dion is putting distance between them. ]
Diluc. Let us make this quick.
[ He swings his lance, aiming to sever Diluc's head from his shoulders. ]
no subject
[ let this be quick—though diluc will not merciful.
he ducks the killing blow, and swings again at dion's skull, aiming to cave his head in. his other hand bears down on dion's wrist in an attempt to stop him from swinging his lance. he has to stay in close quarters—his victory depends on it.
—but pain bursts through the hand that had once been shattered, and his hold on his hammer is compromised. it won't connect the way he intends it to, whether it meets dion or not.
it doesn't stop him. he'll try to shoulder into dion instead to tackle him to the ground. pain sears through him, blinding. his head slams forward, aiming to break the other man's nose.
he won't hesitate this time. he'll end this properly. and then—
(and then what? what is he fighting for? a memory? a corpse...?) ]
no subject
Until now.
Diluc is his friend. Honest, steadfast and loyal. He's gentler and kinder than his demeanour suggests, and Dion had felt privileged to learn and uncover more of him.
And now, that meant discovering the feeling of his blood hot against his hands, and the sight of life steadily leaving his eyes.
He doesn't, hadn't, ever want to hurt him. And yet— ]
Are you hesitating?
[ He doesn't flinch when the hammer slams down into his shoulder, though it forces him to shift his lance into a more defensive position, holding the length of it in front of his body like a barrier with which to ward off Diluc's tackle.
The headbutt connects with his nose, the bone crunching and blood pouring, but Dion stands his ground, heels digging into the ground into a quick turn. The deadly point of his lance comes down again, this time aiming to cut into his shoulder and render the arm useless. ]
no subject
dion's spear finds purchase in his shoulder, and though it doesn't sever through enough to render it completely immobile, it summons the phantom sensation of an axe meeting it from behind—he may as well have cut off the limb entirely, for the way diluc's reliver body processes the pain. the hammer slips out of his hand as he rips himself away, and he aims his boot into dion's gut, attempting to put only enough distance between them so he can retrieve his makeshift weapon. ]
Are you?
[ he'd cut into his shoulder when he could've gone for his throat instead, and diluc will make sure he regrets that mistake.
(there are no regrets between good friends.
dion has always been unwavering against impossible odds and inescapable death. kind despite the crushing weight of his duty and all the sorrows it has brought him. diluc has never wanted to add to his burdens, or to see him further hurt.
so he will finish him here.)
the pain is unpleasant, but not nearly enough of a deterrent. his right eye twitches as the room momentarily shifts, half his reality warped with the blood-stained bodies of those he had tried to save, and failed. kaeya, shouxue, gregor, shoma, scien, yuri—he can envision dion among these faces as well, see blood spilling from the injuries he has yet to leave.
he grabs his hammer off the floor, bringing it up to parry dion's next strike, and he aims for his wrist or elbow, hoping to shatter the joint. if given enough time, he will snatch up the forgotten wire as well. ]
no subject
But Diluc isn't intimidated by pain or the danger of Dion's lance. The hammer connects against his arm, it feels as though the entire limb is a rock for him to shatter.
The pain is enough to earn a small cry from him, ringing through his head as he stumbles away. If he managed to pierce through Diluc, then he'll pull his lance back with him, though his grip is so weak that Diluc could easily take it from his grasp.
He's used to pain, and it manages to claw through him anew nonetheless. Still, he laughs slightly. ]
Well done.
no subject
and still, he is driven to fight to the bitter end. his hand clamps onto the pole of the lance despite his injuries—the effort surely exacerbating them. his grip is no stronger than dion's, but it is desperate as adrenaline floods his failing body.
both of them barely held in place, diluc will still try to use his other hand to wind the wire around dion's neck, a final attempt to sever through his windpipe. the same wire bites deep into his own palm as he tugs—
—though his strength quickly bleeds away with him. the line scratches only a shallow mark into dion's throat, and then loosens as diluc's grip goes slack and falls away. ]
...Dion.
[ it hurts to breathe. the pain is shocking, numbing. he blinks slowly, memories clambering to reach the forefront of his fading consciousness. he can barely grasp any of them. he doesn't know where he is, but he knows who he's with. ]
...I'm sorry.
[ he coughs, and more blood spills down his front.
he crumples to the ground. ]
no subject
(But, the memories of this person still contain far less carnage.)
And that person, thinks it's lovely when the blood gurgles out of Diluc. That person thinks the red that dribbles from his mouth and chin suits him where it turns his skin red, and soils the clothes usually so meticulously kept.
He admires Diluc's dignity, cultivated through years of wrath and tamed temper. He admires his steadfast resolve, honed into a blade after years of being a blunt hammer.
He supposes that he may as well admire him here too, in death. ]
Diluc.
[ Red lines his throat too from the shallow wound from the wire, and he staggers back once it falls away with Diluc. He watches him crumple to the ground, and sinks to his knees.
Diluc often reminded him of the Phoenix: an unwavering symbol of hope. ]
It's alright. [ He settles a hand on Diluc's shoulder to help him sit upright on the ground as best as he can. ] I'm sorry too.
[ And then he lifts the lance in his other hand, and drives it through Diluc's heart. ]
PEANUT GALLERY
(junji ito voice) this is my top level, it's made for me
The story of all his lives, isn't it? Once, he'd been grateful, albeit burdened by guilt and haunted by the shadows of those he'd left behind. He'd been filled with regret over the things he'd never be able to do. He'd wanted to live, even if it felt selfish to move forward--to savor the present and reach for the future, grasping the end of that thread even if it meant cutting his fingers on the scissor's blade.
Now, survival feels like a curse. Sheba's blood stains his hand, and Dahut's, their cold bodies lying in the room beside him. He'd had enough of himself left to position them gently, side by side, their hands folded over their chests and their eyes closed, unless they get beheaded or something, which would be super awkward--and all he can think is that he hopes this is their last life. That they have no new vessels. That they can finally rest. It is the only thing preventing him from breaking completely.
I forgot about Scien. I guess he was nice to him too.
He watches Dion and Diluc in silence.]