Just full of ✨ Thoughts ✨ over the development and progress from when you start the game to when you finish on how P/Carlo just evolves, and kinda just thinking on some internal stuff on how I would like to write him.
How you start and he's just P, he doesn't know his purpose, he just knows he's being called somewhere. Lost, alone, faced with peril and made to fight when he hasn't even stepped out of his "birth place". He wakes up and he's just handed a sword. And he fights. At the start he's very much this empty slate; A newborn stumbling through Krat, and despite the man who calls himself himself father saying stuff like "Krat isn't how you remember it--" He really doesn't 'remember' anything at all. What is there to 'remember', he wonders?
And then he starts to get the memories-- they're not his but also... they are? They feel so close and yet so far away; Foreign and yet familiar. And then he hears a name whispered: Carlo-- and his whole world shifts right from under him. He feels sick, the name makes his head spin. The voice to have said it makes his head spin all the more. And bit by bit. He remembers. Not all of it, but... he remembers enough.
And he's hurt by what he remembers.
But by the end of it, after he claims his own freedom, after everything is resolved, and he returns to the hotel, he doesn't feel fully like Carlo-- doesn't feel at all like "P", either. He woke up not too long ago, and suddenly his life is flipped in its entirety. He's neither, and yet he's both. He doesn't know who he is anymore, but the name sticks. It's all he has left, even if a part of him feels some strange form of imposter syndrome, somewhere deep down... But he doesn't like being referred to as Geppetto's Puppet, either. He's not a puppet, not anymore. He's human, albeit, a different kind of human.
So just Carlo, is fine with him, even if he's changed far beyond of who-- and what-- Carlo was.
'--an Ergo puppet can have a second life and become another kind of human--' He just needed now to decide just what that second life meant for him, now.
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a dream of flight
Inspired by @tali-zorahs's art of Laerryn and Loquatius, 1223 words about their first dance (and what comes after).
It has always been easy for Laerryn Coramar to take the lead in her life. She has always charted her own course, probed and tested every limit with a methodical and exacting eye for detail.
Centuries after her city falls, other arcane seekers will find bits and pieces of Laerryn’s machinery and puzzle at their intricate workings. Even with the whole apparatus before them, it is doubtful many would even begin to comprehend what the Architect Arcane has wrought.
For each system within the arcane engines, conduits, and capacitors of Avalir is optimized by her hand, forming a beautiful design that is as elegant as it is functional. And of all the people in this city—a city filled with mages and artificers and all manner of brilliant arcanists—she is the only one who can see it in its entirety. And she is the only one who sees what it could be.
It is her gift to be so singular. It is her burden to have no peer.
So Laerryn is accustomed to leading.
And yet. When Loquatius Seelie asks her to dance, she thinks to herself—it might not be so bad to follow, once in a while.
It’s not for his slick words or his effortless charm that she trusts him. Laerryn has known many schemers who have wielded charm like a ornamental knife that one realizes too late is not just for show. No, it is the man between the masks who intrigues and perplexes her in equal measure. It is the light shining through a multitude of stained glass faces whom she wants to know better. And to be honest, he is the only genuinely interesting person at this party (with most of the other guests ranking just below the hodmedods in terms of their capacity to carry on a stimulating conversation).
“Would you care for a dance, Madame Architect?” says Loquatius, all perfect teeth and meticulously sculpted cheekbones. She wonders idly if he’s focus group-tested different facial structures to find out which ones people found most charming and/or trustworthy. It’s not lost on her that he’s chosen his words carefully so that he can spin them as cheeky or deferent, depending on how she responds.
As she’s pondering this, it takes a few seconds for her mouth to catch up to her brain. “Um. Yes.” She blinks. “That sounds good. And just Laerryn is fine. Titles are…” She hesitates to say unnecessary, because she has worked damn hard for this one.
“…titles are for strangers,” she concludes. And even though they have only known each other a few weeks at this point, the words nevertheless ring true. Even now they are not strangers, and for all that is to come, they never will be again.
“All right. Laerryn, then,” says Loquatius. “I hope it’s all right that I take the lead here? You’ll have to forgive me if my moves are a little out of date. The last time I visited this plane, this dance hadn’t been invented yet." He shrugs apologetically.
Laerryn pauses for a moment, trying to figure out if he is joking or not. Analysis: inconclusive. She ultimately decides it’s irrelevant and nods politely, taking his hand as he leads her gently out onto the ballroom floor.
Right on cue, a new song begins to play. Out of the corner of her eye Laerryn sees the music is coming from a small ensemble of self-playing five-stringed instruments, their strings a fine gold and synthetic alloy and their sound amplified by a permanent sonic enchantment. Her thoughts shift briefly to their construction and whether similar techniques might be incorporated into some sort of maintenance apparatus for the engines that power the city.
She doesn’t have much time to dwell on this particular bit of spellcraft, however, as her eyes meet those of Loquatius (he has been graciously waiting) and on the next downbeat he is sweeping her into the dance.
Though she is capable, she’s not used to dancing the follow role. Her first instinct is to take control, ensure that the right sequences of steps are executed precisely on time and in tempo. But Loquatius, flexible and fluid as he may be, is no pushover, and there’s a playful glint in his eyes and a smile on his lips as he deftly redirects her momentum into a pivoting step that whips the two of them around in a tight orbit.
She wants to calculate and analyze and predict, to calibrate the torques like she’s done so often in her laboratory-cathedral beneath the gilded city streets. That would be easy. Natural. Familiar. But she looks at him—sweet Avalir, she looks at him—and decides instead to follow his lead.
And take the lead he does. Loquatius is light on his feet, endlessly creative with his steps and generous with his cues. He is smart and confident and decisive and he’s never been more attractive. In this moment, Laerryn thinks of the twelve Eldritch Batteries that power the city’s engines, and she thinks of the weaving channels and circuits through which their ether flows.
That’s how she feels now, in his arms. She is raw distilled potential, flowing in an intricate design towards a distant goal that is simultaneously impossible and inevitable. On a night much like this one and not too far off in the future, her city will fall. Laerryn Coramar-Seelie will fall, and her beloved with her.
But in this one shining moment, they are here and they are together and they are flying. And nothing else matters.
As the music comes to a climax, Loquatius spins her to hook her right arm around his neck, shifts his own hand to the small of her back (she can feel the steady pressure supporting her weight), and lowers her into a dramatic final dip. They’re both a little out of breath and a little sweaty (though the latter is easily cleaned up with a bit of Prestidigitation), and she looks up at him through a bit of a haze.
Gradually, he helps her back to her feet and they make their way off the ballroom floor.
“I hope that was as good for you as it was for me?” says Loquatius, and though the innuendo’s not lost on her, Laerryn also observes there’s a sincerity in what he says.
“Yes, that was… actually really fun. Thank you for the dance.” She can see the wave of relief wash over his face, though it’s immediately replaced by that picture-perfect smile he loves to wear.
“Believe me, the pleasure was all mine. Guess I’ll Seelie you around, Laerryn.” He flashes a pair of finger guns at her, then turns to rejoin the party.
As she watches him walk away, Laerryn runs a quick mental calculation. If he leaves, it could be weeks before she sees him again. But if she stops him now, maybe their fun doesn’t have to end just yet. To be honest, it’s the easiest calculation she’s ever done.
“Hey, Quay?” she calls out. “You doing anything later?”
He stops. “I mean, just schmoozing and boozing like you do at these things. Why, you got a better idea?”
“I might have a few. Quick question, though. Academic curiosity,” says Laerryn. “As far as your shapeshifting abilities go: is your face the only thing you can change?”
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