Your New Life

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Another New Life

You wake up to the sound of surf, much, much closer than you've ever heard it unless you moseyed down to Puffin Pier back in the old days. What old days...? Why, the days when you had a body, of course. The memories are probably coming back by now, jumbled along with everything else you lost. What a wake-up call.

But at least the ocean is real, unlike your dubiously fragmented remembrances. This little island out in the middle of nowhere sports a crude sign reading DUCK DAMNED ISLAND that seems like it's really railing against whatever fate you've been left to. There are little seashells and sparkling fragments amongst the sand to the left of your face. If you look further, to the left and right, it seems you're not the only one who's woken up here; it's considerably less cushy than your last wakeup, but maybe that's not a bad thing.

Here, you're free, albeit... kind of incorporeal, as you'll soon find out. The island is covered in pretty little trees that don't quite form a forest, bowed over the really beautiful sandy beach that is way prettier than the one on the mainland. One, slightly rickety treehouse -- bare of anything, because incorporeal ghosts don't need furniture, of course -- peeks out from between the leaves. This is, apparently, your home away from home now.

Finally, there's a small bay-like area on the island that leads you to a strange-looking storm drain, marked with a symbol that's not-quite-an-apple. Stepping in will wash you alllllll the way back up to Puffin Pier, right where the sewers normally let out.

Oh, and once you step onto the mainland? You're now a duck. What kind of quacking afterlife is this.

((OOC: the tldr; about death is here!))

Main NavWeek Two

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[sorathvau]

[Beelzebub was expecting nothing. That’s what happens when Gods die, you see: there is no afterworld for them, only oblivion. Complete non existence.

So when he wakes, he can’t help but laugh. Dry, desperate, broken.]

…What a cruel joke.

[Now that he’s remembered his sole reason for living.]

[lovebombing]

It is, it is, but any joke can be turned around, y'know?

[Here's a familiar face, poking into Beelzebub's field of vision. Hi there.]

[sorathvau]

Sampo…?

[It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to see him here - but his is a face that he thought he’d never see again.

There is some wash of relief, some comfort, to see the man who declared himself his friend. In a way, his passing dodged him a bullet, but they’ve still ended up in the same place, haven’t they?]

Despite everything…you’re still talking like that?

[lovebombing]

Haha. Well. Let's just say I got back a little of me I was missing, and I guess when things change, things don't change at all!

[??? WHAT DOES THAT MEAN. He's reaching out to ruffle Beelzebub's hair.]

I saw the whole thing with that execution in person. It was....well, to choose an understated word, pretty rough.

[sorathvau]

[What DOES that mean. Beelzebub makes a face at having his hair ruffled, but he does nothing to stop Sampo from doing it.

He has plenty in response to what he says next, but what gets him most is-]

You were there? How?

[lovebombing]

Oh, I was a duck.

[quack]

[sorathvau]

[…]

What?

[lovebombing]

Your lap was really nice, by the way! Very comfortable. 10/10 stars. Ehe~

[:3]

[sorathvau]

[…oh.


Oh.]

…And if I were to walk into the ocean right now?

[jarcrash]

[ As Beelzebub will find out within a mere hour of arrival, the afterlife is NSFB. Not safe from Bibi. And Bibi is capital m Mad.

Having spent two weeks teasing a brawl with Beelzebub suddenly is a lot less funny for having watched Amy die by his hands, it turns out.

It's really too bad they're not in the zone where they're corporeal, because Bibi would love to do some actually nasty things to Beelzebub's newfound immortal soul, all in the name of.... ]

Answers. Now.

[sorathvau]

[He knew this would be coming. As soon as he’d seen Sampo, he knew that he’d have to face the consequences of his actions one way or another. Death was not the absolution he expected it to be.

His head hangs low, he can’t bear to look at her - as relieved as he is to hear her voice again.]

…What do you want to know?

[A redundant question, perhaps. But he’ll drag this out, he’ll take her venom. He doesn’t deserve the easy way through.]

[jarcrash]

[ Beelzebub looks every bit like his normal miserably emo self... It's hard to combine this temperament with the beastly man who'd been after them that night. Bibi stares at him like she could extract the truth by merely straining her eyes a lot, but she comes up empty. ]

'Why' would be a good start.

[ 'Getting out of here' is a valid enough reason on its face, but... ]

Why us.

[ There are perfectly good other people to kill. ]

[sorathvau]

[That, at least, he can answer.]

…I really enjoyed our time together. Eating meals together, listening to you talk, laughing at Erika together…I’d had fun. I thought I could live like that. I didn’t want it to end.

[It sounds contradictory, doesn’t it?]

I thought we’d be safe here. Safe from him.

…But I was wrong. He was closer than I’d ever known.

[jarcrash]

[ That... doesn't make any sense whatsoever. But on the plus side, it is so baffling that it puts a damper on her murderous aura for a second. ]

Who?

[ There was only one person there that night and it was Beelzebub himself - right? ]

[sorathvau]

Satan.

[Though, this requires some elaboration.]

All my life I’ve lived under a curse - that anyone close to me would suffer misfortune at Satan’s hands. I thought…he couldn’t get us here.

[If he hadn’t let his guard down, maybe…]

But Satan was inside me all along.

[jarcrash]

[ Bibi blinks. This is so esoteric, it's hard to fit into any of her pre-existing ideas of how to handle this situation. A second personality...? A curse...? It's not much of a stretch after all else that has happened, but it still feels totally out of left field. ]

So you killed me because... you like me?

[ Taking Amy out of the equation for a moment because she is getting the sinking feeling that Amy was collateral to this equation. ]

[sorathvau]

Yes.

[As contradictory as that is.]

[mareum]

["I'll say," Is what Dongrang would reply with, but he's more surprised by who's saying it.]

Beelzebub?

[He'd walked through the town with Shinobu before attempting to enact his plot in the wizard's tower, but he never saw his roomie up and about during all of that.

What else happened?]

[sorathvau]

Ah, Dongrang…

[Of course. He wouldn’t know. He must be wondering.]

…I took Shinobu’s place. They could only vote for one of us.

[mareum]

[His face immediately falls into a deep bitterness.]

...They sympathized with her, didn't they. Assured her that it was simply self-defense. She did what she had to do.

[Whatever. Whatever.]

Does this mean you also acted that night? Surely they didn't simply pick you as a scapegoat.

[Though he honestly wouldn't be surprised if they did.]

[sorathvau]

[It’s a new tone from Dongrang - but he can’t blame him for that shift. His killer is walked away free, after all. Regardless of what had happened beforehand.

Before answering, Beelzebub considers his words.]

…I did. I killed Bibi, and her friend Amy.

[There’s no pride in it, only dull acceptance. These are the fact, whether he likes them or not.]

[mareum]

...Ah.

[The chill in his tone subsides as surprise once again takes its place. Somehow, he wasn't expecting that to be the answer.

A laugh without a shred of humor escapes him.]

Haha. Wow, our humble Corpse Flower Farm has certainly lived up to its reputation of producing corpses, unintentional though it may have been.

What brought you to act?

[sorathvau]

[There’s the question. All he has is muddy answers.]

…We’d had a good night together. Bibi made dinner for us all, we talked, we laughed…I blacked out. When I came to, I’d killed them.

[A scene he’s too familiar with now.]

All my life, they’ve said I’m cursed by Satan. That anyone who gets close to me suffers terrible misfortune. [He looks down.] This…was proof those weren’t just stories.

[mareum]

Ahhh, and I'd lamented not getting back to the cottage in time for dinner...

[A highly inappropriate thing to muse about in response to Beelzebub's troubling predicament, but it's probably a good sign that Dongrang doesn't even know what to actually say. A curse? That's something straight out of an urban legend. And yet it was true?]

What a tragedy, though. I'm surprised they didn't take pity on you.

cw suicidal ideation

[sorathvau]

[If Dongrang had been there…how different would things have turned out, really? They’d probably be in the same place.]

I wouldn’t let them. I told them to vote for me.

[Still…despite that…]

Some of them didn’t, even though they’d be letting a monster walk free.