oops! all fall down

"Long ago, before the dawn of this world..."

So Klaus blathers on. Malos, living weapon that he is, has many a time been through the paces of wondering whether or not his teeth (or his cheekbones, for that matter, if you're so inclined) are actually sharp enough to cut through meat and sinew, flesh and bone; he wonders again now, because they seem far, far too blunt to do anything more than distend the shape of his lips as he bites them, bites them, bites them, and grinds his molars, those anti-wisdom teeth.

The entire schtick about Blades is that they're born anew every cycle, that the world keeps evolving, or not, but that the Blades only retain that which can be cast as procedural, in the primordial mold. There can't possibly be anything so interesting about these before times that his puerile father now apparently intends to wax logistic over, that matters to change the moral affect of the past five centuries.

I don't care about long ago. It's too late to change any of that. You know it, you absolute piece of shit, so why the hell do you think I'm gonna stand here and listen to you call me by my wrong name before you take a little waltz down memory lane and tell me about how your life sucks? Dickhead.

That's what Malos thinks, anyway. The rest of him relaxes his posture, subconsciously and almost imperceptibly, and listens. Likely, Klaus becomes no small measure more triumphant as he notices his obstinate audience become captive.

"When I was quite young, only a schoolboy, I had a picture book."

So it's time for art critiquing? Please. Save it, Malos is about to spit, but some invisible, unknown recommendation tells him that he should resist the urge to turn an otherwise civil conversation into a grand-scale battle - not even a fair fight, because obviously the old man's too weak even to put regular clothes on, let alone armor and a fighting stance.

"It was...a spot-the-difference, more or less. Though, without the difference. Meant to test recollection of basic descriptions and the ability to perceive minute details." Things Malos has always been very, very good at. Precision is his only gilding.

"On one spread, there was an elaborate contraption, conceived with the end goal of popping an air-filled balloon by the most contrived means possible."

"Sounds like a waste of time," says Malos, dry like paint.

"Indeed," replies Klaus. "You and I both would think so. That is, the adult version of me, the one that was last seen as inhabiting...that world."

Oh, like father, like son? Yeah, right.

"Not only was this machine entirely useless in function and in form - not only does it mean only to pop a balloon, it does it by all manner of irritatingly and uselessly drawn-out mechanisms - it was composed of children's implements. Whether it be dominoes, marbles, shovels, cars, musical instruments, miniature plumb weights - no, more like bowling pins, weren't they - and buckets and wooden disks plugged with holes, from a primitive construction set...all these individually trivial pieces played a crucial part in the machine's operation."

Ah, and now Malos's own cogs begin to turn. "This a metaphor?" An analogy - no, an allegory?

Klaus smiles, emptily. Not quite cold or wooden, but...subsumed. Every movement this man makes has a critical effect in the airspace of the room. Does he know that?

"I never saw the machine in motion - no child who owned a copy of that book ever did. We simply had to imagine. And, well we did. Perhaps a small voice echoed in my head, tempting me to try to make it up by my own hand, but I never tried. What would have been the point?"

What would have been the point? That's what Malos would like to know. That's always been what he's wanted. Not even what would have been, but what is. Why must scientists always speak in hypotheticals?

"So you never did it, huh?" Malos rolls his neck, relishes in the rich, sharp crack. Maybe his bones are hollow. Maybe his corporeality is lighter than air. Back to the teeth; has anything the Dark Aegis has ever done been performed in physical realspace? Does his domain concern anything more than imaginary numbers, letters, figures, calculations of soul and spirit?

What a load of crap. "Pretty pathetic. I should have expected as much, from you."

Klaus inclines his head a quarter turn, and somehow Malos perceives it on multiple axes at once. No, no, no, he doesn't like that. His father, the architect of this world, is a washed-up old hippie with dreams somehow bigger than his ego. He shouldn't be able to be eldritch. That's my right.

"I did do it, eventually. I built this world."

And did you do it on purpose? Did you really do all this...because of that?

No, say that again. Slowly. Did you really do all this...because of that?

Yeah. Sure they did. It's all they've been doing, all they've ever done. And yet... "But the balloon isn't popped yet." The accidental optimism screams of the humans, and a little bit of Akhos's theatrical flair. It tastes bitter, and sweet, and bittersweet, on Malos's mechanical tongue, though he doesn't know quite why.

Klaus's final pronouncement is grim. "I trust, when it comes to you, that it always eventually will be."

And so Klaus, as ever, fumbled it, bungled it, stuck his walkless foot directly into the black hole supernova.

When you tell someone what to do, they very often become...less inclined to do it. Unforunately, no such exhibition of that phenomenon here. Malos's thoughts churned, and churned, and churned, clock ticking and hanging and spinning and whirring and computations in and out and out and in...

The purpose of Organization Torna. We are all but cogs in a wheel...it is not our purpose to pop the balloon but rather to ensure that the balloon is popped. Some are the dominoes, some are the pin, but all are essential to the overall, symphonic concerted, predetermined and predestined machinations of the sky's own wheel.

Or are we?

They all planned to pop the balloon, and now they've got it. Why the hell else would they have egged me on?

Heh. What would the boy say to that? Probably something stupid, something...childish.

Jin never wanted to pop the balloon! He just wanted to get close to you! He did it 'cause you showed him a path!

Stupid child. But if he gets close to me, the balloon will pop anyway! I'm a wretched pin, far beyond dulling!

They all desired to fall down like dominoes...and now they've achieved it.

What if the machine breaks? No one talks about that. Right?

Long ago, before the dawn of this world...even children could understand inevitability.