Andlátkyn; Vandr Sanses unin Alagaësia

Strange Realities

((My devices and apps conspired against me in an effort to prevent this chapter from seeing the light of day, but I've finally managed.. a day later.))

"What do you know about us?" Nightmare was the first to speak, regarding the gathering of monsters evenly.
"Enough." Omega snarked just as Carrot spat. The pair glanced at each other in faint surprise while Blue sighed, pinching the bone between his sockets.

"Do you really?" Abyss quested, skull cocked to the side. His eerie, piercing eyelights seemed to be made of crystal somehow, gleaming unnaturally.
"They clearly don't." Black scoffed derisively. "A damn fool thing to do, ignoring the clear differences and signs."
"And you call yourself Judges." Razz added in disgust.

"Razz." Blue shot him a look, Carrot wincing as Classic steadfastly ignoring the reveal as he shifted slightly, being the first to humor the question.
"I know you killed many monsters across the Multiverse. Humans too, though you preferred to torture specifically. Spreading fear, pain.. anything that hurt, you wanted it from others because you fed on it. Have I missed anything?"

"No." Nightmare confirmed, watching the tension grow in the monsters behind the original.
"But as you may have guessed, I have given up those practices."
"Might I ask why?" Classic asked mildly. "Old habits always die hard, and given that you do sustain yourself on others' misery, I have to wonder what actually made you decide to stop."

"Alagaësia was plenty miserable when I first arrived." Nightmare explained with a hum. "And I am not blind nor ignorant. To be thrown into an entirely foreign world brimming with all I need to sustain myself and more does not bode well, especially if it is sourced from a lone world and not the endless universes that make up the Multiverse. Perhaps more of myself still remained in the Multiverse up until it fully collapsed, and that messed with my reading of the world. Regardless, Alagaësia was originally extremely dangerous, unknown, and hostile."

He glanced away to stare at one of the green towers still standing across the city, blank expression slowly shifting to something softer, worn.
"Furthermore, I have always held emotions of my own, separate from my needs. Yes, originally I was a violent individual who only cared for power and resented that which stood in my way, but eventually time forces an inevitable introspection upon oneself. I do not like what I do. What I have done. Before Alagaësia, I did not dare to think of it long. What good is a regretful, miserable king of Negativity?" He flashed a lopsided grin that fell to a grimace before he returned to his apathetic stance.

"No. I did not have the option to cease then. Do you know the consequences of ending the holder of Negativity?" He asked, raking his unusually purple-green eyelights across the gathering.
"I do now." Classic replied softly when no one else spoke. Dream was already staring guiltily at the cobblestone beside him, away from his twin as Nightmare nodded.

"Yes, I imagine you would not want to be laughing at the loss of a loved one, nor smiling when you break your own bones." Dream was still pointedly looking away.
"But neither would you care, if I ever perished by any chance. I was cruel, yes, but I sought to survive. I sought to thrive. Does an overcrowded, overburdened Multiverse deserve to drown in soporific, sickening bliss? No. To drown in honey is still to drown. Better to feel the bite of the poison rather than perish without comprehension of your own demise. This is what Dream did not realize in our eons of existence." He ground out the last words, lights flaring a chilling blue before shifting greener once more. Dream only winced.

"Though the blame does not fall entirely on him. I failed to ever fully explain our power, our own importance. I had not thought he could lack the knowledge so utterly. I had imagined he had treated it as a falsehood, content in ignorance."
"Why?" Razz cut in to ask, baffled.