thenashira | Game Update: August II 2377

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!game update

Game Update: August II 2377

Weather & Recap ⭐︎ By Daylight ⭐︎ By Starlight
🎶 Recommended Listening: Answer - BUMP OF CHICKEN ♪
august ii 2377
EPISODE 8: When You Wish Upon a Spark...
August 16 - 31

NOTE: As a reminder, there will be no event or missions this month while the mod team takes a break. The game update contains prompts for all of August II, so play around to your heart's content!

Star Suite: The Training Room has been unlocked! Special training machines are now available to the Nova Knights, and they now have access to a new Star Suite power, Sparkle of Life. More details about this power are included in the Starlight section. The Rewards page has been updated with information about the next unlockable room, the Portal.
Constellations: 2/7 Constellations captured. The Nova Knights have the Dancer and the Three Sisters.

Weather: Chalra City's hot hot summer continues! While August isn't quite as hot as it was last month, it's a good deal more humid and stickier. Whether it's a swimming pool or a beach, Chalra City residents are flocking to the water to cool off and relax. Sunbathing in the park is a popular activity on cooler days, and local shops and restaurants court young shoppers by offering special services and sales suited to the student wallet. The highs for the month average around 90°F/32C° with lows around 78°F/25C°.

Recap: The Nova Knights got some badly needed wins in the first half of August! Not only did they rescue the Three Sisters from the Harbingers' clutches, but Dirk and Reese escaped from the Abyss more or less intact as well. They managed to foil most of the Harbingers' plans at Littleneck Beach, but the Harbingers got away with their stolen energy, and whatever they were harvesting from the folks consuming Potari Sweet. The Harbingers have since disappeared from Nautis's magical radar, however, suggesting that they're prioritizing their defenses over a proactive attack.

BY DAYLIGHT
⭐︎ Summer break is over — it's back to school for all students. Hope you did your summer homework, or at least copied it from someone else last minute!

⭐︎ As the summer swelters on, the Midnight Diner serves up a Chalra City summer favorite: finger food-sized fried chicken with a spicy yogurt dipping sauce known by locals as pieces and beach sauce. While beach sauce is typically associated with fried chicken, Chalra City residents will put it on just about anything, and everyone's got their own recipe. Master's beach sauce is known to pack a powerful chili kick.

⭐︎ Chalra City commemorates the end of the summer with a fireworks festival on the waterfront running from the 26th to the 28th. Chalra City's artisans take great pride in their craft, and they spend months preparing three consecutive nights of elaborate fireworks displays on the waterfront, each more fantastic than the last, leading up to a truly show-stopping finale on the evening of the 28th. The festival is only active at night, but much like the Smoketree Promenade's midsummer event, there are plenty of food stalls and street vendors to occupy people's time before the fireworks go off. Sparklers are a popular toy for children and adults alike!

In Chalra City, the fireworks festival is about more than just tasty food and spectacle — it's an important opportunity for community togetherness and gathering with friends and family. There's an enduring old custom in this part of Atlace of making wishes on fireworks — if you make a wish aloud as a firework goes off, it may come true, and conveniently, the noise of the fireworks drowns out all but shouting. Of course, most people will agree that it's just an old superstition, but sometimes you can hear a murmur of voices intermingled with the deafening pops and cracks, so perhaps some of the Chalra City folk are a little more superstitious than they'll readily admit. Everyone needs a little something to believe in.

And it wouldn't be a true Chalra City summer event without a little competition! On the evening of 27th, the festival holds a spicy food eating contest hosted by the celebrity comedian Wakaba. Contestants will be tasked with eating a variety of hot sauce-coated foods, with the spicy factor increasing with every round; in between rounds, while the contestants take a brief breather, Wakaba asks them a variety of personal questions, most of which inevitably end on a joke. While there is a small cash prize for winning the contest, the real incentive is bragging rights.

BY STARLIGHT
⭐︎ Hope's Prophecy: Thanks to their past life as a diviner for the Oracle, Hope may occasionally receive prophetic dreams that give the Knights a hint about what's to come. Hope did not have a prophetic dream this time around either, but there's always next time!

⭐︎ Hideout Status: The Aquarium has 20 new quartz shrimp in addition to the four goldfish! The massive tanks are still mostly empty, but it's a start.

The Training Room is now accessible! If you were expecting a classic gym experience, think again — rather than conventional workout equipment, the Training Room holds what appear to be a series of arcade machines with a decidedly Hassalean aesthetic. Apparently, this is how the Nova Knights in their past lives honed their skills! There are currently three working arcade-style workout machines in the Star Plus training series: Star Plus Blazer, a target practice game to help hone weapon proficiency; Star Plus Light Catcher, a Whac-a-Mole style game where you bop cute little star-shaped monsters; and Star Plus Beats, a drumming game with two large drums that helps with magic power circulation.

There are more workout machines, but the rest are all out of order...who knows, maybe you'll find a way to repair them someday!

⭐︎ Star Suite: Another Silver-level Star Suite power has been unlocked! The Nova Knights can now use Soul Flash, a Silver-level finishing move that cleanses ordinary people who have been temporarily possessed or changed by the Abyss. The overzealous beachgoers who had drunk Potari Sweet, for instance, would have been cured in an instant by Soul Flash!

Star Suite powers cannot be alone; they must be used in concert with at least one other Nova Knight, and the more Knights who participate, the stronger the attack. It can only be used once per supernova transformation. Characters in eclipse lose access to Star Suite powers for the duration of their eclipse.

⭐︎ Maomao's Garden: If Maomao has made any crucial progress, she hasn't shared it with anyone. Instead, she's just fully taken over the Lab and relocated the entire hydroponics garden there for better study. Trespassers will be hissed at.

⭐︎ Nautis Updates: Late in the evening of the 15th, Nautis informs everyone with unusual gravity that two more of their number have been claimed by the Abyss: Sunbeam and Crescent. As far as she can tell, they're not in one of the more surface-level pockets of the Abyss like the last few Nova Knights, but somewhere deep and as of yet unreachable like Nova Zenith. The Harbingers have gone to great lengths to hide themselves from Nautis, so it'll take time before she can find a way that deep into the Abyss. She urges everyone not to lose heart — their friends aren't dead, only captured, and the Nova Knights are coming for them.

> I know it's hard to think about having fun at a time like this, but... > I just don't think it's good to dwell too long on what's already happened! You've got to take all that emotion and let it drive you forward! ( ◡̀_◡́)ᕤ > Besides, you know they wouldn't want you giving up at every setback! We'll prove their faith in us and rescue them for sure! > So you have to make sure to take care of yourselves, OK? > We've got some of the training machines up and running if you want to feel productive about your emotions ദ്ദി ˉ͈̀꒳ˉ͈́ )✧ > I hear this city's got some great fireworks...I know! You should all go take pictures for me! ^_^ > After all, it's not like I can go myself... Don't you want me to enjoy the fireworks? Don't I deserve to witness beauty too? > I've been hard at work trying to put together what the Harbingers did to the Three Sisters and everything... > The Constellation will recover, but yikes, those clowns really did a number on it. What they did was basically sacrilege! Don't they know these are precious artifacts of Hassaleh's Ocean Temple?! > It really fries my circuits to see those good-for-nothing villainous losers abusing priceless pieces of our history (｡•̀ ⤙ •́ ｡ꐦ) > The Constellations' magic was never meant to be used so directly...I don't think they have any idea what they were tampering with. > Thank the stars they didn't! They could have done much worse than mess with some drinks. We can't let another Constellation fall into the Harbingers' hands again! > But it seems like they're laying low for the time being... So I think it's time for everyone to take a load off! ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

⭐︎ Intel: Although it's still unknown as to how the Harbingers' ship managed to disappear itself from Nautis's sensors, a conversation overheard by Dirk and Reese during their escape strongly suggests that while Mistiluxia clearly has dealings with the Abyss, the other Harbingers may not even know of its existence.

That doesn't mean all is quiet on the Nova Knight front, however. Even though there doesn't appear to be real any Harbinger activity on Earth these two weeks, there is an uptick in drinks monster sightings — more specifically, slushie monsters. While many of the monsters the Nova Knights face are directly summoned by the Harbingers, some, like the drinks monsters, are a byproduct of the Abyss's influence on Earth. So while there may not be a bigger Harbinger plot to foil, these monsters still need defeating! It is really hot out, though...would getting hit by just one frozen slushie attack be all that bad?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

a. can you give me all that you've got? [spicefest 2377]

It would be very, very stupid for Hope Carassia to enter a spicy food competition, and especially one that's got a celebrity host and a bit of prestige to it. Unfortunately, they have done exactly that. They make it through the first round reasonably enough, but once they get approached, and almost instantly, by Wakaba in the break, they start realizing that all of this has probably been a bit of a mistake.

("Carassia, huh? Now where have I heard that name before? Don't tell me you're the secret, long-lost daughter of one of the richest men out there!" "Ha ha... no, uh, I get that a lot. I think it's just one of those names that sounds similar." "Well, thanks for clearing it up. I hope it wasn't too much to Car-ask ya!")

Big laugh, attention pivots to another contestant, and Hope ducks off to the side to try to recover from how heavily they're already sweating. It's definitely just because of the spice and not the stress of being recognized in public, which. Should have happened more often by now, they think. They brush their hair out of their face and look out into the crowd, hoping that nobody they know has spotted them.

b. lonely, how do you feel? [fireworks]

The thing about wearing yukatas is that it's really easy to hide any other clothing underneath it. The only giveaway whether someone approaching this person on a hill near the beach is about to meet Hope or Nova Pandora would be those stupid boots that are supposed to help them stand their ground but have only felt like they're weighing Pandora down lately. It's at least a nice-looking yukata, a dark violet to represent the night sky with red and yellow explosions that could pass as flowers to a casual viewer. A big firework goes off, and they mutter a wish under their breath, and once the ringing stops they finally glance over to their side and smile weakly.

"Hey," they start, regardless of who they're actually talking to. It's hard to hold on to hatred or grudges or fears right now with everything they've been through. It shouldn't sound so familiar. "So how are you holding up lately?" they ask, sighing and fixing their companion with a look that says, maybe too loudly, that they're going through it too.

c. it's only me lacking in zeal [for dirk]

@ Pastos, fireworks? I wanna talk.

It's scary, you know? Forcing yourself to see somebody who you've done nothing but embarrass yourself in front of. At best. But if all of Chalra is out at the fireworks festival and Hope went to the trouble of wearing a nice yukata and making themself be social again, and spirits are generally pretty high, then there's not really going to be a better chance.

Hence: The @ in the Nova Knights group chat. The yukata means that they'll be able to hide a lot of their outfit, minus those boots of theirs, and that they can still talk without worrying about exposing their own identity. (They know they have Pastos at a disadvantage on that one. They're trying to pretend he won't also know that.) Idly checking their phone, they're standing next to a stall near a small stone stairway that leads off to a slightly more private area. It's close enough to the excitement that they'll be able to hear the fireworks going off, but at least they'll still be able to talk. Hopefully.

They text the name of the stall over to Pastos in the group chat again and stand there feeling only a little awkward. At least they're not freaking out too loudly about it inside their own head. They did have to spend a moment clenching every muscle in their body and then releasing them all to help manage that stress response, but that's not the point. Hopefully Pastos won't be... Pastos about all of this.

d. bloom together at the end of the line [wildcard]

((anything else? hit me up in the discord!!))

Edited 2025-12-12 21:51 (UTC)

Not coincidentally, Nova Pastos has been trying to find a time, a place, or at least a way to get Pandora on their own so he can speak to them--at length, preferably, but anything more than 'passingly' or 'where everyone else can fucking see' would be a great fucking start.

Problem is, he has no idea how to do that without coming across as potentially hostile, or at the very least 'extremely likely to be told no,' which is not an outcome he has the personality to deal with right now. Combined with the long, sleep-heavy period of recovery from post-Abyssal exhaustion, he just... hadn't had a chance to figure out the 'initiating' thing.

One would think he'd be glad to have that task taken off his hands.

He's not.

Pandora's invitation is vague to the point of being ominous, and he cannot help but feel like he's being called in to face something extremely unpleasant.

But he'd much sooner take this head on and face it fully, so he makes his way there--out of Super Nova, by foot, because he is under no illusions as to the advantages Pandora does and does not have over him, and is not afraid to make a point of it. And sure, he could theoretically have covered his costume with a men's yukata, but the number of layers that would involve would be obscene. He's more of a jinbei guy, anyway. In black.

He leaves Pandora on read until he's two stalls away, then texts back.

Behind you.

Lil Cal hangs from his shoulders, no more chatty or mobile now than the day Dirk found him.

Well, this meeting is off to a great start. They check their phone, and before they've even processed it all, he's right there behind them. With that puppet, too, of course. They try not to jump, but their nerves are right back on fire all over again as they're faced with the very person they'd invited here.

Once their shoulders drop, they nod in greeting. "Hey." And then indicate behind him, those stairs, off to where they'd actually wanted to... do all this. "Feels a little dumb to be doing this as Pandora if you're just you," they start, like it's going to make any real difference. Maybe it will. Maybe it's about power dynamics or something. "But I just wanted to talk about... like, everything that I've been doing to you. If you're okay with that." Contrition is an awfully heavy thing to hold. They'd love to put it down.

They're right in one respect: power dynamics are a real thing, and whether or not either of them are consciously engaging in that, they are at play here. Even if it's only as a determining factor in how bad any one person thinks they should feel right now.

For example, Dirk watches them stiffen up in surprise, and wonders if he should feel any kind of guilt about that. He doesn't, but it seems like the kind of thing normal people apologise for. This does not make him apologise, but he does tilt his head slightly in greeting.

He might have continued that with his trademark Sup, but they beat him to the first word--and so instead he stares at them for a couple seconds, silent and unmoving.

When he finds his word--or word, singular--it's not very eloquent.

"What."

"Yeah," they say, nodding and glancing away briefly. It's not unexpected, but it makes sense that he'd reply that way. "Look, I know it's weird for me to even open with that kind of stuff, but I promise I can explain myself. And..."

They tighten their hand into a fist, but release it after a second as they breathe out again. "And it's gonna be a lot of apologizing. Just as a spoiler warning. 'Cause I've been going through some shit, and none of that is your fault, and it... and it sucks that I was taking it out on you." They look over Dirk's shoulder again. "So, like, come on. I might chicken out if we have to wait much longer."

Frankly, and this might just be Dirk's busted expectations of other people talking, but he really would have been more prepared for Pandora to--well. Actually, no. He did expect to be apologised to, because he already went over that with the nhallucinatory figment of his own brain that wore their appearance in the Abyss. He fully expected and still expects some drivel about how they didn't mean for him to actually experience the Abyss, and he was prepared for that with the exact same retort he had for the Pandora who in retrospect was (or so he came to believe) mostly just a retread of his usual self-refuting psychodrama with recent material and a slightly newer coat of paint.

Whether it was or wasn't all him (he wants to think it wasn't--but he also wants to believe it was) doesn't matter because what matters is that there are apoliogies, or disclaimers or disavowals, that he came ready for.

'I was taking out my stuff on you and it wasn't your fault,' however, is so far from what he believed Pandora was ready or able to deliver on, that he's still standing there looking at them like he has the exact same amount of brain cells as Lil Cal.

Or maybe like he's heard what to say and found it wanting, and has now proceeded on to judging them harshly.

They're all kind of the same look, on Dirk.

He does, however, gesture--still wordlessly--with one hand. Lead the way.

That's the thing about him that's so confounding sometimes. Irritating, almost. But Pandora is trying to give him grace (given where he's coming back from) and it's also not at all what they want to focus on in the first place. Sometimes getting caught in their own head is a tool.

They lead him up those stairs to a small area with a small handful of benches and a little bit of tree cover. There's room for others, but with the excitement going on outside of this little urban idyll, nobody seems interested in bothering them. Before sitting down, Pandora makes a choice, and they slip out of supernova as naturally as going into it. The yukata doesn't really give anything away, but they do lose maybe a half-inch of height as they transform back into their normal clothes. Their hair dulls in color, turning from natural to a messy dye job, and their eyes are just custom purple contacts. They slip their phone into the pocket of their jeans underneath the robe, and they finally sit down.

"So my name's Hope," they start, waving just a little before folding their hands in their lap. "And... I don't know. I don't even know where to start. You met me at a very strange time in my life?" They give a half-smile and glance up at their companion like that's something that's going to land... but they already suspect he won't give them an inch. (Why would he? They ambushed him.)

"I haven't been handling anything well since I got back from the Abyss. That night at the Diner was, like, the first time I'd talked to anyone since I got back. It was always going to be a disaster no matter who I ran into. I'm sorry that I acted like such a bitch to you." Like, yeah, he'd also said some pretty heinous stuff to them, but they can deal with that later. "You really were just trying to have a normal conversation and I was only hearing what I wanted to hear."

Dirk follows in silence, his jaw pressed tight.

His continued mutism is a deliberate choice, but for once it's one that has nothing to do with looking cool or stoic or mysterious--or very little to do with it, anyway. The tension in him is all him--he has so much he wants to say, to interject or introduce, even just to say that, hey, incidentally, he wanted to say some shit himself.

But that statement about chickening out was his cue to shut up and let them say what they need to--a logic he kind of understands, frankly, but they got their words out first, and he has no one to blame for that but himself. Call it curiosity, courtesy, or cowardice, but he held back, and they went for it--those are just the facts, and no amount of post-introductory regret will change what he didn't do.

It shouldn't even be a big deal. If he was capable of being remotely normal as a human being, it wouldn't matter. But he's not. And he knows he's not. He knows his own personality, and his own flaws, and he knows that if he says one thing, he'll say another, and so if he says anything, he won't stop saying things. The only way not to continue is not to start, so to keep himself from interrupting--from dictating, or directing, or prying, or overwhelming them--he keeps his mouth the fuck shut, following them in not-entirely-intentionally menacing silence until they reach what Pandora must consider a suitable spot.

He doesn't know why they couldn't have at least started this where they were--

And then, he knows exactly why.

His eyebrows lift, just slightly, in disbelief. Hope. Is that seriously their name? He wants to ask, but he has to stow it for later. Along with everything else. He's reeling privately, battling an internal wave of bewilderment and slight dismay, but they keep going, and this might be for the better. Because while they're making points he's much more prepared to be walking, that means he has a chance to get his shit together on the inside.

He stands, awkwardly--or imposingly--and glances at Cal briefly, as though asking do you see this shit?

Or maybe he's hoping for a cue--puppet to puppeteer.

But eventually, he steps closer and lowers his ass onto the bench, sitting slowly in a way that radiates deliberateness. He's trying to figure out the best way--the best time--the best strategy to speaking up. There's so much he wants to say that sitting quietly and politely (or what he thinks is politely) is fairly excruciating.

"You did do that," he agrees, his voice low. "Although by the end of it, I'd say it was more that you only heard what you didn't want to hear." He is being as restrained as possible, mostly out of desperation.

It might be the nicest thing they get out of him today, and they have to take that as a victory. That's why they hide any exasperation with a breath, deep in and out, that could just be shaking off anxiety. God knows they have more than enough of that to spare, too. At least he'd sat down, but the way he did it makes Hope wonder whether he's ever sat before in his life. Maybe that's something else they need to take into account with all of this. Maybe he's just as bad at conversations as they are—at least, when the time comes to get serious. Like right now.

"Yeah," they agree, trying to at least move past it. "And, you know, with the Sisters... I could have stopped myself from freaking out about Mortis. I could have locked in, but I was just..." They look up at the sky. "It felt like walking through a mine field. It really messed me up when we lost one of my friends to the Abyss, and then I got sucked into it, then you and I met and I haven't been doing anyone any favors there. And now four more people fell into the Abyss and only two got out." They're not, or at least not yet, going to apologize for what they said to him before the failed capture mission. They have to come to different point, and eventually, with luck, they'll find it.

"I'm not trying to make excuses or anything. I just was... I was expecting something different, you know? When I got that first call from Nautis. But this job is piling on so much stuff that I am obviously not handling well. And I'm sorry that it's just led to me lashing out at you and acting like... I don't know. A coward?" they try to finish, laughing only a little without any humor to it. "A shithead."

Dirk can't help but notice that they don't bring it up. He's not sure if he's disappointed or relieved or simply observing--especially considering the figment of his own brain that was wearing their face addressed it so promptly in the Abyss--but he does notice.

"It's good you're acknowledging it," he says, sounding to his own ears like the most static helf-help stock phrase dispenser ever created. "It doesn't change anything. But it's a start." A start to what?

He doesn't even fucking know. Whatever his planned talk would have been a start to, he guesses. Something, maybe. That's the fantasy version of it. Or maybe absolutely fucking nothing. That's the version he's trying to pretend he isn't conscious of.

"You were only kind of a coward, anyway. A shithead, sure, but you turned it towards Shellustria once shit started happening. Not me, and not Mortis. You weren't very effective back there at the restaurant, but you didn't flinch. It was more like the first mission." As he talks, a realisation begins to grow. And then it happens: his mouth keeps going when it should have stopped.

"So you suck at people, but your action seems fine."

Shit.

....

He didn't mean to get here so fast. He didn't intend to take this over--this is why he needed to keep his mouth shut. Now he's set himself the fuck up, and that can't be all they have to say. Is it? There's no way they called him all the way out here just to say that. Strider, you fucking imbecile--

"I can--"

--what, he can tell? He can help? He can relate? No, he can't. He can't do any of that, because what he needs to do is shut his yap so he can get to where he's not going to say something worse. At least he caught himself before he said whatever it was he thought would be a good idea in that moment.

He shuts his eyes tightly, takes his own deep breath... and sighs, heavily. Like he's already exhausted of this.

"Nevermind. You were saying?"

And despite how, as Hope suspected, he wouldn't be able to stop himself, when he finally says that one thing that they knew would end up taking it too far, it hits them hard enough to make them laugh. Sudden and sharp, but real. Maybe it was just unexpected or maybe it's just way too close to the mark, but no matter what, it's a very funny thing for him to blurt out in the moment.

"Oh man. Sorry," they say, once he's given them the chance to keep going. "No, that's actually really encouraging to hear. I've... hey, don't laugh? But after you tore into me at the Diner, I started at least taking guitar seriously." They extend their hand palm-up and spread their fingers to show off the callouses, not that they're anything to be impressed about. "It's not much, but it's a start. So, like. Thank you, I think is what people say?"

They return their hand to their lap. It's hard to come up with what to say next, but they still think there's more. They can't just leave it at that, right? "I really want to do the right thing, and my heart and my head," and Natalia and their mom, "Have been telling me that the right thing to do is to try to make up for the way I acted towards you. So... yeah. I'm just. Sorry that I've been handling my shit so badly, and that you had to be the lightning rod for it all. You didn't deserve it."

What.

They're... laughing?

What's so fucking funny?

Well, if he hadn't shut himself up, that probably would have done it for him. He is genuinely not sure what's so funny, and he's frustrated enough with himself that he really isn't capable of pulling off any attempt to laugh with them, but... it's better than a fight, especially before he gets the chance to say anything he actually means to say. So he manages to suppress a grimace--or thinks he does, anyway.

In truth, the corner of his mouth twists in a strange way that isn't a smile, but it isn't fully committing to the frown, either. It does show some teeth, just for a microsecond.

The rest of his expression is hidden behind the sharply polarised surface of his sick trademark shades, so the way he blinks when they display their hand is concealed completely. The result is another unimpressed-looking non-reaction: just more flat, inexpressive staring. Finally, he glances down at his own hand in its fingerless glove: dry from lack of care, scarred and calloused from an excess of labour--or at least effort.

He doesn't know if he's supposed to actually say 'you're welcome' here, but given the struggles he's been having with time and place and choice of response, he decides not to.

Which is just as well, because when they describe him as a 'lightning rod' for their emotional fallout--and immediately follow up with 'you didn't deserve it,' it's his turn to laugh.

When Dirk Strider laughs, it's short: just a dry, hoarse little huff of breath that catches in his throat. But it's a laugh nonetheless.

"Funny you should say that," he says, and closes the hand he'd been scrutinising back up into a fist. Then he hesitates.

Is now a bad time? A good time?

This is as natural segue as he's likely to get. And they led right into it. But--that can't really be all there was to this, right? Just... 'I'm sorry?' He doesn't know how he feels about that to begin with, he's still processing it. Probably it would be easier if he wasn't so distracted with everything he has going on in his own head, but when isn't he? There's never a good time for thought, or any real intensive mental processes, unless he's by himself. Then it's easy. Around people--especially people who are talking to him, expecting things from him--it's basically impossible to keep his brain running smoothly.

"Are you done?" The question is sincere--although with how transparent his intentions tend to be, it may not sound that way.

"Because if that was all you had to say..." he lifts his hand, then redirects it to pat Lil Cal on the shoulder, giving himself an action while trying to find a way to continue that sentence without cutting them off. "I guess I'm just confused. I thought you had this justifiable hatred thing going on, and now you're apologising. Which--I appreciate it. I really do. Or... I think I do." Like, it's a nice gesture. He guesses.

"But it's kind of wasted on me. I think you probably owe the apology to Mortis." He shrugs one shoulder, the one that isn't supporting Lil Cal.

Edited 2025-12-14 04:02 (UTC)

He's not wrong. Now, they do immediately feel like they've made him impatient, or pissed him off in some way, and watching him try to react to them and do an offputting job at best is not helping. But they're trying to remain calm about this; some people are just bad at this kind of thing. Like themself. So they're trying to handle it like a normal person would. Even if talking to him can freak them out on a good day, and they haven't had a lot of good days in the past month. They're grateful for some kind of way to move past how... well, it's not important whether he thanks them for apologizing or whatever. That's not why they did it, and saying he appreciates it is more than enough, probably.

"Would you believe I thought you'd be easier to apologize to?" they admit. "Mortis is... different, and I don't just mean whatever happened to her after the Sisters. I've been screwing things up with Mortis for longer than I've been screwing them up with you." They think back to the conversation with the girl with the guitar back at school, earlier this year. To the jam session where they'd revealed their love for Afterglow to the girl that they now assume has to be Mortis' real identity, and where they'd first heard advice that they weren't ready for. Every day it gets a little easier, but you gotta do it every day.

"And I really don't even know what I've been saying wrong. I've thought about it a lot and I have some really strong guesses, but, like." They look over at him, hoping to read something in his reactions, knowing they'll come up dry. "I can't apologize for something if I don't understand what I did wrong first. Otherwise it doesn't mean anything and I'm just going to end up doing it again. So," they start, and look back in their lap, "I have to have a really long talk with Mortis first."

Here, Dirk's brow furrows a little--one eyebrow lifts, the other creases.

Which is at least a reaction, even if not necessarily a very helpful one.

The reaction is, of course, to their accounting of Mortis. He has no idea what they're talking about, and it's not really his business--even if he is actually curious, because for the life of him he can not figure out how in the actual goddamn shit someone could screw up interacting with Mortis without being... you know, him. Let alone how anyone could screw up repeatedly.

But they do have a point, in the end. About apologising.

He has a lot of things he could say here--like how understanding what you're apologising for won't necessarily stop you from doing it again, and again, and again, whether that's by failure of self-control or by simply inventing new and previously-unrealised ways to do it again. But he doesn't, because he's making a concerted effort to not assume the worst of Pand--

To not assume the worst of Hope, no matter what his other priorities (or suspicions) might be.

"Good," he says finally. "I'm not sure that will help, but--if you're serious about it, then good. As for me--" he steers the conversation back before Hope can ask him what he means, or realise that they should be asking him more questions.

"I appreciate the apology," he is more sure of this now. Knowing that they intend to apologise to Mortis--to a person who didn't just spend a week or so in the Abyss, and who they did not (as far as he knows) have any reasonable pretense to take issue with--has eased some of his discomfort with the gesture.

"But you know it doesn't change anything, right? I'm not returning the favour. Me saying thanks isn't the same as me apologising." Which isn't to say he won't, necessarily--but he doesn't want it taken for granted. He has to start at the beginning, or he's going to lose it. Now. The time to act is now.

"There is something I need to ask, but don't get your hopes.... up... ugh. No. Hang on." He stops himself again, angling his head in such a way that their own face is reflected back at them in triangular duplicate.

"Is your name really Hope?"

This is funny too, honestly, but they don't laugh. They get as far as a smile that's sort of polite, but it also feels a little like they're being made fun of. "Yes, my name's actually Hope," they say patiently. "And I know this isn't going to change anything. I mean... I hoped it might, if we're being totally honest!"

There's that word again. Their name, of course. Something their parents, their real parents, had wanted them to always keep with them no matter how dark the world got. Fat lot of good that's done them lately, but maybe that's why they needed to talk with their mom. Maybe that's why they needed to not be a Nova Knight for a little bit and just be a confused and afraid 25-year-old. Maybe they needed the reminder.

"But I know that I can't force you to react the way I want you to. I'm okay with you just saying thanks, and then if sometime down the line you find anything you want to apologize to me for, then we can just do that when it gets here." They think, maybe, that he should apologize for at least one thing right now. They aren't going to push it; instead, they'll swallow all their own words and try to be satisfied with the way they taste.

"So what's up? What do you need to ask me?" they finish, trying to sound curious. Friendly, maybe, if they felt like pushing it. Instead, they know there's a slight shake to their words.

Dirk doesn't respond to their stated hope--if anything, it kind of puts him off, but he keeps that much to himself. The pressure that's been building inside his head is immense, and he just doesn't have room to hold on their feelings as well as his own.

Which feels to Dirk like Hope's emotional needs and wants are being presented to him against his will, with the expectation that he not only do something--anything--about it, but care about it on a fundamental level he does not seem to have. is expected to make space for Hope's internal life in his, or even at the expense of his.

This is a sensation that Dirk experiences a lot when interacting with other people, and he knows it's something he's supposed to shoulder, and shoulder gladly--as a Nova Knight especially, yes, but simply as a good person, or at least a bare minimum performance human being, he's supposed to take willing responsibility for other people, all of them. All the time. He is expected to make space for their internal lives in his, or even at the expense of his, and not doing so is another moral failure--

But Hope actually knows what it looks like when he does step up. They would probably like him to apologise for it, in fact.

So maybe it's for the better that right now the demand is too much, and that he simply ignores it in favour of his own priorities. Maybe. Or maybe not.

"It's about the Abyss," he says, and his low, flat intonation doesn't change an iota. "I don't know what it was like for you, but I ended up in a pretty heated exchange with something that was more like my own brain than anything, at least until the end. A petty, vindictive version of my brain that wore your face and had a lot to say about my personal failures. Having said that aloud, I realise I've just described my brain normally, minus your face. I don't spend a lot of time visualising your face specifically. That would be extremely fucking weird. Not to mention rude, since--again--this superficially Pandora-looking doppelganger was dedicated entirely to telling me I was a hypocritical fraud who was avoiding any kind of personal relationships while also trying to get me to self-disclose as many humiliating details about my ex as I could stomach so it could insult me about them." He pauses there, playing back over exactly what he'd just over-explained versus what he'd intended to reveal, and where it was he was trying to go with it.

He finds himself frustratingly prone to getting lost in the process of thinking, and then when speaking is added, he often loses the goal--the words and the thoughts inform each other in a twisted cognitive ouroboros. An ouroboros that is to Dirk completely transparent and clear, but an ouroboros nonetheless. Even if he goes in with a plan, the process itself simply erases whatever mapped-out intentions he has. Sometimes it gets there by virtue of the thought--the plan--existing fully formed in his mind, with no conscious effort of his own. Other times, he simply begins to speak, and follows his thoughts to their conclusions via whatever logic he has access to in his own brain at the moment, and if those conclusions are not what they would have been at the time the plan was formed, then... well, it sucks to be the man with the plan, doesn't it?

He finds himself more or less in the vicinity of where he meant to be, though. The relief is palpable--he's almost lightheaded with it.

"And most of that is none of your business. You don't care about any of that shit; you definitely don't want want to know about the mangled corpse of my attempted love life, and I don't want to fucking talk about it. I wouldn't even bring it up except that it kept using my own words against me, in my voice. Which, again: so what? But every single one of those words was something I'd said to you."

He watches Hope now, looking for their reaction--something he is ill-equipped to spot and even less well-equipped to correctly interpret, and even further incapable of recognising this about himself. But unlike him, Hope actually has a face and knows how to move it. So he looks, while his own unmoving face and voice haven't given away a thing.

It all sounds like it's normal for the Abyss, unfortunately, but they also don't have a lot of direct experience. It had stolen Mortis and Natalia's faces before, and it had pried directly at every one of Hope's insecurities, including ones they didn't know they had yet. But going so hard specifically at parts of Pastos that they don't... that they're not even interested in knowing about is something. Concerning.

"It did that?" they start, their eyebrows having gone up, their jaw having dropped just a little. "I mean... you're right, I definitely don't want to know anything about the stuff that it was making you talk about in there. But I don't know why it would be using my voice or the things you said to me." They furrow their brow and look ahead of them for a moment; they know it'd be useless to apologize to him for all of this by now, but that doesn't give them any clarity on what to actually say or do next.

"I think it just... digs into your memories and finds stuff that it thinks might affect you." It's the best guess they can muster right now, but it's not a very good one. They frown slightly. "Maybe it recognized me in your memories from when it was having its fun with me and just wanted to take the form of something that it thought would rattle you. I saw Neos and Mortis when I was in there," they begin to explain, finally actually getting around to it, "And Neos is one of my closest friends on the team, and Mortis is... Mortis, you know? So it worked. Like, really worked."

They slump their shoulders and turn their hands palm up in their lap. "I wish I knew how it operated any better. I think it just likes fucking with people to try to crush their spirits. And some of us make it through," they gesture to him, then to themself, "And some of us... waddle out of it making accordion noises like a cartoon character. Maybe it used my face and the things you said to me because it thought you were the same as me."

At the cartoon reference, Dirk goes still--which isn't really any different from the Dirk of ten seconds prior, at least not externally. But internally? He feels it happen. Not a hard freeze, but maybe a chill. Not a screeching halt, but a simple stop. The pause, the suspended moment between two heartbeats. He finds that his breath is being held. He lets it out, and breathes in, and proceeds to act as normal as he ever could have, or ever did.

"Oh, yeah," he agrees, trying to sound casual or perhaps annoyed but still mostly just sounding flat. "It did go on about us being similar. Like that wasn't the root everything I said to you at the Diner. But arguing that didn't really make any difference, before you ask. When it couldn't break me, its goal seemed to change--or maybe its goal just became more obvious. But it went from feigning disappointment that we--you and me, specifically--hadn't become friends, to trying to bait me into asking you guys about Nova Pastos--the other one, I mean--and suggested that maybe I could 'learn something' from that."

He glances at Hope only briefly here. Brief in part because he doesn't need a gauge of their response to continue, and in part because there's an instinctive aversion to seeing whatever that response might be. It will only slow him down now.

(Deep underneath the pragmatism lurks a dim anxiety that looking could reveal more than he wants to see, but it's so distant that to Dirk, the reflex feels natural, not forced.)

"Yours wasn't the only... I don't know what to call it, spectre, maybe... that I met. But it was definitely the most personal. That's why I wanted to talk to you. I'm trying to figure out if there was a reason for that." He pauses, swallowing his own scepticism and bitterness--and the remembered taste and scent of blood.

"Without doing any damage on its behalf in the process."

Ah, fuck--

Here he is saying this, and he almost did exactly that. He corrects the record, and quickly.

"Don't worry too much about the similarity thing. You're nothing like me."

It's meant as a reassurance.

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