I would try to hold it post-script

[ferdiath]

 I’ve been in a writing slump—full life slump (I just have to get through this week). Because of a fun combo of covid worries and also just. My inability to not overwork myself I kind of haven’t technically taken a day off of work since last summer, and at this point I’m actually doing stuff all the time because they’re starting to learn how to give me adequate work to do (yay? Boo? I don’t know). Anyway I’m finally taking time off come August so hopefully I’ll be able to destress a bit. Weeks are long and weekends are short and I am just myself.

So this nonsense. Honestly I’ll never be doing with Aus involving Dying King and the Four Knights because I love the optics of medieval knighthood in a way we aren’t allowed to talk about, and I think there’s something really fun about writing ideologies that I don’t really get (the way that there’s a sense of obligation and honor to choices that are ultimately pointless and will knowingly lead to your own destruction—Ferdiad fighting for Medb against Cu Chulainn or Diarmuid running away with Grainne even though he didn’t love her and had no desire to—to take Celtic examples). So even with my one Arcana interpretation Dying King au out of the way I hardly think I will be done exploring the world of the vague romantic and medieval optics of this part of Elysion (lol). It’s also the most severe indicator of Akira’s weird relationship with Fumi prior to Stranded Stage Girls (the opening few lines that are in character).

There’s no easy way for me to transition to this so here's a quote from Gilgamesh (Mason Interpretation)

He spoke Enkidu’s name aloud As if explaining to the valley Why he was there, wishing his friend Could see the same horizon, share the same delight: My friend Enkidu Died. We hunted together. We killed Humbaba and the Bull of Heaven. We were always At each other’s side, encouraging when one was discouraged or afraid or didn’t Understand. He was this close to me. He held his hands together to describe The closeness. It seemed for a moment He could almost touch his friend, Could speak to him as if he were there; Enkidu, Enkidu. But suddenly the silence Was deeper than before In a place where they had never been Together. He sat down on the ground and wept: Enkidu. Enkidu.

and as a followup

Akira (As Dying King) 
       "I wasn't fit to be king..."

Akira (As Dying King) 
       "I overlooked my realm from the throne, thinking that my power extended to the entire land."

Akira (As Dying King) 
       "But I was wrong. My power was limited. I couldn't save anyone."

Akira (As Dying King) 
       "That's why I lost my dear friend..."

Akira (As Dying King) 
       "I couldn't forgive him for dying before me. I couldn't forgive myself for not being able to bring him back to life."

so perhaps you can understand exactly what I am going for with all of this. Maybe not. I don’t know. Is it fair for me to explain things?

Writing recently has been a case of grappling—with a Hyper Light Drifter AU that is an uphill battle of dual interpretations (interpreting Hyper Light Drifter alongside the characters well within starira), and with two other projects that I consider very important to be very quiet about because I’m afraid of never finishing them. But I’m struggling all the same. I don’t think there’s an easy form of writing, besides planning. But executing is the hard part and it’s the part I usually blunder at (sometimes the desire to be Done overshadows the desire to be good).

Originally there was no final scene to this fic, just a simple paragraph, which was the byproduct of It Was Late and I wasn’t sure I could do it right. But then I did it right (or at least more right) in the morning. The ending is still far too abrupt but...idk so is death. It’s ~stylistic~ get over it.

My personal favorite part of Elysion is the way the dying king is deposed, and that he’s implied to not realize the importance of the knights until he’s already died, so Akira mirrors that here by a fall before her own death.

The whole basic premise is Tamao as death, Fumi sort of acting as a messenger for her (ferrying souls to the afterlife or something). Akira pushes past her own “expiration date” so to say, and so Fumi appears to her as apparitions, but only minorly. As she continues down the path to Yachiyo’s coup, she can see Fumi more and more, and eventually sees Tamao on the battlefield, ferrying souls as they die there.

Akira had to have a descent, and a reason for Yachiyo to stage the coup in particular that wasn't just Yachiyo Wants To Lead, although like. If she wanted to she just would. And obviously there's an interwoven thread of Akira seeing nobody besides Fumi as her equal (which is wrong for Michiru reasons and wrong for Fumi reasons and wrong for Yachiyo reasons in particular--Yachiyo is very much Akira's equal in this and the whole thing is she's told the person who dethrones her essentially will surpass her. Which is Yachiyo, but Akira is too blind to recognize that until it's literally being stabbed through through the chest.

Shiori being involved in the coup is probably holdover from other fics I’ve read and my own latent desire for them to make her motivations regarding becoming an Edel more complicated. Honestly I think it would be more fun if early game Shiori had blamed the other Edels (or at least Akira and Michiru) for Fumi’s departure—wanted to, like, take them down from the inside, and then once she was there realized Akira was actually just surprise-divorced and stuck in the same hellhole she is wrt Fumi. So she gets to betray Akira as well.

Asides of that and so forth, I don’t know if I have much to say. I mostly got the inspiration to finish this from King of Doors lines from Death’s Door.

[pre-fight]

Each of my kind are created by the Lord preceding them and trained to take over their duties before they pass on
On the day we are created, we are told the day on which we will die. My predecessor, my creator was a cold-hearted tyrant
Obsessed with rules and order, how things had to be. The old fool never even gave me a name, can you believe that?
How would your life play out, if you knew the exact day you were going to die?
If every moment of your existence revolved around its ending?
I had to do everything in my power to save myself.
I know my actions are not entirely moral... Perhaps not even justifiable.
But I cannot just let myself die, I refuse to go without a fight...
So, young crow...
Are you ready to fight for your life, as I am for mine?

[final wave dialogue]

Why are we here, crow?
Why do I exist?
To follow in the footsteps of the Lords before me?
To repeat the same things over and over, to what end?
What is the point..
...If we all have to die eventually?
I suppose I will never know
because I will never die…

Can’t explain this, just what it is. Sorry. Dying kings is dying kings.