So. This is... actually exactly what it says on the box. Or the aftermath thereof. The incident itself I am commissioning from a friend, and will probably be semi-canonical at best. Blah.

A bit of background:

The characters are Kita, Feragel, and Indio. They have rather exhaustive descriptions under that 20 questions thing if you're wondering. The scene is a fantasy/medieval/industrial revolution version of New Mexico which tends towards Victorian sensibilities... except for it's anachronistic views on pretty much everything. I know that doesn't make the slightest bit of sense, but bear with me.

Kita, Feragel, and Indio are traveling together, trying to figure out what happened to the Marxist assassination agency that they all used to be a part of. But ignore that, because this is all about everybody's feeeelings.

Kita and Feragel hate each other, for various complex reasons that boil down to each believing that the other has the thing they most secretly desire and has thrown it away. They were going at it together, just the two of them, but that... wasn't working. So they picked up Indio to triangulate. And that worked for a while. Until Indio decided that they were treating him like a child and he didn't like it.

So he decided to get revenge. With Kita, he just kind of sat around and reminded her how miserable she already was. So far, so good. And then he decided to seduce Feragel. That was a mistake. Because Feragel is... well... something of a predator. But by this time they'd all been hanging around each other and they're kind of friends, even if it's in a really dysfunctional way. So in a Traumatic Confrontation Scene, Feragel attempts to convince Indio via volent threats and ******** that they're better off as... well, I'm guessing "friends" doesn't really fit here. Partial nudity is probably involved.

And so, the scene:



Upon returning to the dining room, Feragel met Kita's accusing glare.

"What've you done?" she demanded.

He settled into a chair and pretended to ignore her. "Nothing that you should bother your pretty head about, Dove, though I'm sure you won't let that stop you."

She threw him a look of purest malice as she rose clamorously but without response and swiftly and resolutely strode off to give what consolation she might. The hotel's other patrons waited a while for the slamming of doors or tempestuous outburst known to accompany a lady's anger, but it did not come; Kita's passions burned cold and dark, and though she might for a moment shout of let a chair clatter, she was not given to shows for their own sake.

Upstairs, the lady herself paused as she closed the door discreetly behind her before she turned to confront Indio. The latter sat in the corner furthest from the door, staring intently and miserably at the wall three feet to Kita's left. Seeing no signs of physical injury, Kita settled on letting Indio speak first. For a long time, he showed no sign of doing so. When he did speak, he did so flatly, as if addressing no one.

"Are you afraid of him?"

Kita scowled. "Afraid? Why would I be?"

At first, Indio gave no sign that he had heard her. Then, slowly, something in his expression seemed to soften. "Because you want to be."

"What're you talking about?"

Finally, Indio shifted his gaze to look at her. She knew that look. She'd seen it a lot. It was the recognition that between her and the person looking at her that there was an immeasurable gulf between them, and it was the despair of ever getting across that gulf. Indio dropped his eyes.

"I guess you really do just hate him."

If Kita would have once shouted in frustration, the response had now been extinguished. But she didn't look away, either.

"I'm sorry I couldn't help you," she said softly, and then left the room, shutting the door behind her.



I know this is probably a pain in the a**, but I want to know what people think Kita, Feragel, and Indio are thinking, what they really mean to accomplish when they say stuff, how this relates to anything you know about them, about advertising, about whatever. I know what I mean to be going on and... well, if I got better at actually writing things and they were all, say, going to college instead of fighting monsters, then the whole setup would start looking a whole lot like literature. Ugh.

But the good news is that Winter's Requiem might end up written! Yay!

Sum of All Desires will always be a videogame, though.