perfectmatch | week three

[ Oh, this is... ]

It's...rather dark in here. I suppose that's part of the appeal...do feel free to grab onto me if you get scared, my friend.

[ every time he agrees to one of these things, there's a 50% chance he's taken to some bizarre place he couldn't hope to understand or describe. This is another one of those times. Messmer is glancing around placidly, as are his two serpent companions, despite the dark - their eyesight is decent even in low light. He'd assume they were in some kind of catacomb, save for the fact that everything is very clearly fake. ]

Be this truly considered entertainment amongst thy kind?

[ he's looking at a bunch of skeletons hung up with chains decorating the shadowy walls... reminds him of work tbh. ]

[ Everything is fake and smelling strongly of dry ice and spray paint. It's giving Aventurine a bit of a headache... ]

Among...some, perhaps. I can see the appeal of some thrills and chills, but the production values leave something to desired, I'd say.

[ Some very eerie music plays through an overhead speaker, as they make their way into what seems to be a very spooky graveyard. ]

You don't find it fun to be scared? Er...if this was at all scary, anyway.

[ there's spooky fog and everything!! Wow. It makes it a little bit hard for him to navigate - the dry ice starts making the snake at his legs woozy. ]

I have long fought in a bloody crusade prior to mine arrival here. Death is no frightful stranger to me.

[ fun to be scared, though...? Messmer genuinely doesn't remember the last time he was truly scared by something - other than in an existential way, which is clearly not the kind of fear they're going for here. ]

More often am I the one feared. [ ... ] It bringeth no joy to me.

[ A bloody crusade, is it...Maybe Messmer is something like a Pathstrider of the Hunt, though that also depends on what his crusade was for. ]

No, I can't imagine that's a particularly welcome feeling... [ It brings a question to mind, though. ] Were you surprised, then? How quickly you were accepted here.

[ Maybe not everyone accepted him quite so quickly, but he doesn't seem all that scary to Aventurine. Then again, he's also the type to find existential fears much worse. Maybe they'll see an isolation chamber or something at some point...that'd be fun! ]

[ he shakes his head quietly. ]

I approached thee not as an enemy, and thou art from far beyond the Lands Between. My name and face, my serpent kin - they holdeth no meaning to thee.

[ there was the height difference, yes, and he still cuts an intimidating figure, but the real reasons people are scared of him are tied to his culture - and his role within it. ]

[ Well, that's a little heartening to hear. They are two very different people who are hard to get close to for different reasons, but he's found it to be quite comfy here, among this group.

Anyway, he's about to get a little philosophical in the middle of this styrofoam graveyard, while a few zombie actors mill about aimlessly. ]

I've found that refreshing myself. Miss Maya and I talked about it before, how arriving here was sort of like...a fresh start, in some ways. No one knows our faces or history. It's better that way, don't you think?

[ Even though he's still determining the answer to that for himself. It would have saved him some....trouble if his reputation preceded him here. ]

[ the zombie actors are hilariously normal to him. It's the equivalent of seeing a bunch of people dressed up as average suburban parents or something similar - the only weird part is that they're not actually zombies. Messmer squints vaguely at them while his shoulder snake watches Adventurine. ]

... One may see it so. Yet that history doth live still inside us.

[ even if everyone else knows nothing, he still knows everything he did, and he can't get away from it... ]

So it does...

[ He can't argue with that. Even when no one knows who he is, he can't escape from himself, and that's the true obstacle. That's only been proven to be more and more true the longer he's here.

He and Messmer may have more in common than he realized. ]

We do tend to be our own worst enemies. Any closer to letting yourself find love, my friend?

[ don't make him answer that!! ]

I have naught but lost what love was already fading from mine hands.

[ very vague of him, but he sounds rather grave as he says it. This is not a pun, despite the many graves around them. ]

[ That does sound rather grim, and it would be easy enough to brush it off playfully, and that might be the kinder thing to do here. He doesn't know Messmer too well, so he can't say for sure. But...

...well. He's been trying to be a little more direct, and he can't take shortcuts just when it's convenient for him. ]

"Naught but lost"...that means there's still a little bit left, doesn't it? I would have said the same before coming here.

[ And yet, here he is. Somehow...still finding the capacity to love within himself. ]

You might surprise yourself! But only if you allow yourself to.

[ that is not what he meant, but Messmer doesn't have it in him to correct him. There's not really a point, anyways; he'd have to explain too much about himself and his mother. All he does is shake his head faintly. ]

And what couldst love accomplish?

[ it wouldn't change anything... it hasn't changed anything. Even so, he sounds rather mournful about it, some sadness creeping into his flat affect. ]

[ Hah. As if he hasn't been asking himself that same question for the last two weeks...

And truthfully, he still...doesn't know the answer. Whatever his feelings for Nico are turning into, as nice as it feels to be wanted by someone, that doesn't undo the mess of a man that he is. It doesn't change that he's damaged, that he has years and years of unpacked baggage he doesn't want to force onto a partner, that he doesn't know what he wants out of life, or if he even wants to...

It just isn't fair. Love is a debt he could never pay back, and how does he reconcile with something he will always owe? ]

I don't know if I have a good answer for you there. All I can really offer is...every choice we make in life is a gamble, and the sweetest victories of all are the ones that come after a series of crushing defeats. I don't know about you, but I like to beat the odds when they're stacked against me.

[ the way they're talking about this in the middle of the zombie hordes ]

[ this aint about them ]

Hmph... By cards art thou truly addled.

[ his metaphors are awfully on the nose, aren't they? Messmer's not prone to impulses, no matter how high the stakes are - a consequence of his long life, perhaps. Or of the way his godly mother raised him. ]

And by mine ears Nicodeme hath not provided thine answer to thee. Curious.

[ his gamble surely paid off already, judging by the way they act around each other! Around this time, an animatronic zombie hand suddenly shoots out of the dirt ("dirt") by one of the fake graves with an incredibly loud screaming sound effect, which succeeds in making Messmer's snakes jolt backwards with synchronizes hisses. ]

Edited 2025-06-26 03:27 (UTC)

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