No True Man
| No True Man | |
|---|---|
| Date of Cutscene: | 26 November 2012 |
| Location: | Darkness |
| Synopsis: | Ivo is confronted by his greatest foe. |
| Cast of Characters: | Ivo Galvan |
Darkness, all is darkness, as far as the eye can see.
The fog sucks at his boots like marsh mud as Ivo turns, cloak whirling, gazing sharply into the shadows, seeking signs of life, but he offers the only color in a world composed of shades of gray and black. Only the heavy mist's slow flow offers movement, the shifting of its dark tones mesmerizing, like the brief appearance of patterns amidst static. To gaze upon it too long is numbing, yet there is nowhere else to look. There is not a single star above.
'As anticipated.'
"What?" Ivo spins again, nearly stumbling as the mist clings.
'You continue to disappoint me, boy.'
What had been merely an expression of alert suspicion melts as the knight-errant's blue eyes, motes of light amidst the dank, widen and flicker, his lips parting-- and drawing into a near-snarl, a flash of fear suppressed by bristling pride. "And you don't know when to quit," he barks back, so far from the playful tone known to his friends, "old man." He twists his head, having difficulty moving his legs now, but sees nothing. "Where are you? Show yourself!"
'Ah, quitting. You would be the expert at that. I cannot say I am familiar. Nevertheless, as is typical, you ask only the foolish questions. I have always been with you. Indeed, it is you who have dragged me from my slumber, and carry me with you wherever you go.'
Ivo's eyes narrow briefly, then widen again as he looks down at the hilt of his sword, Hauteclare, its simple pommel protruding from the haze. His head snaps back up, defiant. "It's not yours anymore! /I've/ taken up this sword! /I've/ struck down the Darkness! Not you! You're /gone/!" he shouts into the void. "It's /all/ gone! The whole world's dead! So /let it go/!" His slender body shudders, a sparkle of moisture at the corners of his eyes. "Let /me/ go!"
'If only I could, and be rid of the shame of our... affiliation. I can only marvel at what I've spawned. If you cast me aside, what, exactly, would remain, pray tell?'
"More than you ever were!" is Ivo's hoarse scream. "People count on me! My friends trust in my abilities! I make the world a more interesting place! And maybe that means nothing to /you/," he spits, "you obsessive maniac, but I won't let anyone down, and I'll never be /boring/!"
'Cowards are always boring.'
"You--!"
'How can someone so consumed by the past not let others down? Your whole being is a reaction to me. And so, for all your pride, in loathing me, you loathe yourself. Why wouldn't you? You toy with the world like a child, as though to be 'interesting' were the height of human achievement, just as you toy with the hearts of others.'
"I don't hurt them," Ivo protests, but he shrinks back, his gaze wavering, and as he instinctively reaches for the hilt of his sword, he distantly realizes that the mist has risen above his waist. "I don't hurt anyone! There's... there's no way I could."
'Of course not. You and I both know that. You can't hurt anyone -- because you are impotent, a shadow of a man. None of the men you provoke could ever see you as a threat. And why would any of the women you flatter be wounded, when none of them could lo--'
Hauteclare's blade is flung into the night, the crackling orb at the tip of the sword's freed hilt pulsing intensely as Ivo clasps the handle with both hands, white-knuckled, the energy's glow illuminating his wild eyes.
"Shut up! Shut up! Enough!" He lurches forward, if there is such a thing, as the blade whirls back to him, cutting through darkness thick as molasses. "Let's end this! Come out! Fight me!" But as he steps forward he stumbles, the mist constricting him like a serpent's coils. "Ghh--" Falling to his knees, he begins to sink, and gasping for breath, the thick fog fills his lungs, choking. Eyes widening desperately, he reaches out his hilt, waiting to receive Hauteclare's returning blade, to somehow cut himself free.
'You lost that battle long ago, my son.'
Yet nothing returns. The blade has vanished, and the hilt falls from benumbed fingers as Ivo, sinking into the darkness, begins to flail desperately, tears of rage and anguish streaming openly down his cheeks, too breathless even to retort. He struggles to lift his head above the mist, but something bears him down further by the neck-- and as his gaze darts low, he sees to his stupefaction a pendant hanging there, dark as though crafted from rawest shadow, a mirror of one he sees almost every day. And it is in helpless bafflement that the darkness takes him, shrouding his vision at last--
"That's not true!!"
Chest heaving, shirt soaked in sweat, Ivo blinks then, swallowing, throat raw from his own outburst, finding himself in his bed. Having lurched to a sitting position, his eyes quickly flicker about the room, noting to his vague and befuddled relief that none of his fellows are present in the dorm. Then abruptly his hands lunge for his own chest, grabbing-- at thin air, where some dark pendant might be. In the darkness, suspended in front of him, the card Facilier had shown him, the future he had promised, the story he had told. Hanging in the air, the words Ivo had shouted, then and now.
With a sigh like his very spirit were living him, Ivo slumps back into his pillow, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling above. But he does not sleep. Not for a long, long while.
