[ic] shadow pheasant's mementos inbox

[pheasantboy]

Feel free to tag here, if you want to run into Shadow Pheasant in Mementos.

He doesn't have a phone, and must make his own fun. Be warned that he's level 99 and will attempt to eat all Akirens (and probably many others) on sight.

Comments

[pheasantboy]

Again, he shakes his head the tiniest bit. The remnant of Ren glows quiet and small inside him.

[cybermask]

Alright, he was being surprisingly cooperative. "Why are you so upset then?" It wasn't accusatory. She just wanted to help. Even if all she could do is help him through his thoughts.

[pheasantboy]

"Who said I was upset?" It's the most like himself he's sounded, though it's still eerily flat. "It's the first time I haven't been upset."

[cybermask]

She hid her smile better that time. "You keep staring at the escalator, and you are quiet. Your voice also isn't like normal." She hummed, tapping her fingers on the ground.

[pheasantboy]

"Of course I'm staring at the escalator. They're going to return in force. I killed one of them." He makes this sound a fait accompli,

"Then again, who am I kidding? They'll find some excuse to let it pass.They always do."

[cybermask]

"I doubt they will. He's alive." She shrugged. "Too many of us are murderers to really care." God, it was easier to list the ones who don't kill. "Plus, it wasn't like he was well liked."

[pheasantboy]

At that, he snarls. It's not as if he likes Ren, but that's his business. "Useless pieces of shit. They won't even avenge him. What use are they?"

[cybermask]

That wasn't a typical reaction. "I don't think any one would about any one here, other than those romantically involved." She curled a little into herself. "Even when you get to appease everyone, it doesn't mean they will... care that much about you."

[pheasantboy]

No sympathy is forthcoming. All he says, eyes fixed on the escalator, is, "Obviously. Nobody cares about anyone else."

[cybermask]

She shrugged again. "I think they care. But I can't tell if it's pleasantries sometimes. Like Magpie and Crow. They definitely care for each other. I care for my brothers enough, that Ive planned to be the sacrifial lamb. But you already know that."

She sighed. Would her brothers care that much about her? She wasn't exactly going to ask them.

[pheasantboy]

He lifts his head a little, with that unnatural flex of his neck, staring at her. "They won't thank you for it. I died for Ren, or tried to, before. You see what it got me."

Wait, when did his Amamiya become "Ren" to him? He couldn't even think of him before.

[cybermask]

"I never expected it." She sighed. He died for his. Wait, he just said Ren. Not Amamiya.

"How come you did? Some blaze of glory?" She teased.

[pheasantboy]

"I was a moron, obviously." He stares back not at the escalator, but at the ceiling. "Should have just shot him and left. Taken the poison pill, made it work for me somehow. But I didn't."

[cybermask]

She snickered. "Sorry, sorry. That's just," she hummed. Wait didn't he just kill that Ren? "I guess you can say you two are even now."

[pheasantboy]

Even? No, he doesn't think so. His hand, or what passes for it, creeps to his stomach, where he can feel the little Ren-spark glowing.

[cybermask]

She tilted her head. "What's up with your stomach?" Did it hurt? Could stuff like that hurt shadows? Did he get hurt? Should she run a scan? Did her heal skills even work on shadows?

[pheasantboy]

The Shadow glances her way, matter-of-fact. "He's still here. I can feel him."

And what a novelty it is, after the nothingness of his experience to date—no touch, no taste, nothing but an overwhelming drive to consume, which is now sated.

[cybermask]

"Feel him? Like how? Like when you feel full or is it something else?" She was curious, this was a first she's ever heard of something like this.

[pheasantboy]

"I'm not hungry any more, so there's that." That itself is like existing in a different world. "It feels good. Which I'd forgotten anything could do. Of course, it'll pass, or turn out to be shit. Maybe I'll be consumed by fire, like those ghost stories."

[cybermask]

That was a strange thing. "I mean, I doubt you'll be swallowed up by flames." She stretched her arms above her head. "I'm glad you feel good. It's been too long since you did."

[pheasantboy]

"How do you know that?" Look at that, a return question.

[cybermask]

"To which?" She asked tilting her head. There was a small part of her happy. That was strange. "If it's the flames, I don't believe in ghost stories. Not after everything we've been through. There's too much for that to be true." She had a feeling he meant the other. "You look..." She gestured to him. "relaxed? Your body language is entirely different." She could go into detail if he so wished.

[pheasantboy]

"That's not what I asked," the Shadow says, with just a trace of irritation. "What makes you think it's been a long time?"

[cybermask]

She blinked. "You've been down here a while. I assume it started when... you were back there. I've been here for months, I've known you about a month. That's a long time. Is that not to you?"

[pheasantboy]

Are there any times in his life he'd have characterised as "feeling good"? He doesn't think so. A few heady moments, perhaps, all stupid in retrospect. But he just shakes his head.