personavelvetroomdr | [open/intro]

Ann knows this place.

This shade of blue, and the song...though its notes flow far more harmoniously than they had the last (and only) time she'd heard them, the melody itself is enough to make Ann's heartbeat kick up a notch. That song only plays in the Velvet Room--and the Velvet Room is not a place she wants to be. Lavenza had said it. Her gut had said it--and Elizabeth had confirmed it. The Velvet Room was in the control of Yaldabaoth, wearing the skin of Igor.

Ann had never met Igor, personally, but both Akira in the previous timeline and the Attendants she'd encountered had painted a vivid picture of him. Taking in her surroundings carefully (this Room matched neither the descriptions of a prison Akira had once given her, or the crumbling ruins Lavenza had pulled her into at the End of a World), Ann eyes the man she can only assume is Yaldabaoth. And, even if it is truly Igor...

She's never met the man, and she doesn't trust anything he has to say to her. She might not be garbed in her will of rebellion, currently, but Célestine is always with her, and steeling her spine with a little of her flame, Carmine stands tall and proud.

Ann takes in the doors. Makes a split second decision that she shouldn't just be rushing into making a decision; Lavenza, and Elizabeth, she trusts--and she's heard Elizabeth describe their siblings enough that she feels as though she can trust them too. She'll poke around in this unfamiliar Velvet Room for now, and see if she can't encounter one of them...or at least someone who can tell her what's going on.

[OOC: check out Ann's AU info and perms here!]

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Getting herself back under control and gathering her thoughts, Ann suppresses her own issues to be dealt with another day; business as usual.

"I don't know the circumstances of whatever deal Maruki tries to make," Ann says, "but with Yaldabaoth--when Mementos and reality become one, cognition blurs. Public opinion and belief in the Phantom Thieves is at the lowest it's ever been, and combined with that...well. I'm sure you get it, right? Akira thought we were dead, I think. I wasn't there when he made the deal, though, so I don't know for sure."

Ren chews contemplatively on the little brownie he got with his ice cream.

"It's basically the same thing," he says with his mouth full, before swallowing. "There's an Akechi here from a world where his Ren Amamiya made the same deal your Akira did, but with Maruki. Akechi was dead in reality, but he would live on in Maruki's reality as kind of a..." How the hell do you even describe Sparrow? "...Marukified version of himself. Brainwashed is a good word."

He should text Sparrow, actually. See how he's doing.

"Ah," Ann says. "Yeah, I think I met him shortly after I first got here, he seems a little..." Is there a polite way to say creepy? "...sad, I guess. Lonely." She stares down at the final melted dregs of her ice-cream contemplatively. "I suppose if he's been mind whammied by Maruki, that sort of explains why he reads as so...hollow."

It's...scary, to think that could have been her, in a world that wasn't--but only isn't because Lavenza managed a miracle.

"That's kind of fucked up," she comments. "But I guess it's mostly sad that we all keep finding ourselves in situations like this, haha. Having to choose, or being leverage in a choice..."

(Ann considers, just briefly, finding Maruki's Shadow in Mementos when she got back home and just...taking care of it. Nipping the problem in the bud. The thought makes her sick to her stomach...but so does he.)

"On the bright side... if there is a bright side. If you worked as leverage, your Akira must have cared about you a lot."

Ren thinks about that sometimes. It makes him feel cold and shaky to think about being Sparrow, but it doesn't feel good to know there's no danger of it, either. Sparrow had been loved, like Ann had been loved.

He is being pathetic again. Ever since he got back to his real age, it's never fucking stopped. He brings the paper cup to his lips and drinks the remnants of his ice cream.

"He loved me," Ann says simply, because she knows it to be true. "He loved all of us, and that's why he made the choice he did. It's because I love him that I can't hate him for it, really. Even if, by the slightest chance I were to ever meet him again...I don't know if I'd forgive him for it." Some things can't be taken back, after all. And Akira hadn't been the one to take back his decision at all; it was Ann who'd hit that undo button.

"It's awful," Ann sighs. "I just hope you never have to deal with anything like that, Amamiya-kun. It's not fair to put a decision like that on a teenager in the first place."

"Oh, it won't be me. It'll be my Akechi. He's the one who has to deal with shit like that." He twirls his long-handled ice cream spoon in his fingers. "He's strong enough to handle it. But I wish the world could give him a break. Just for one damn minute."

He sighs. "Anyway! This got depressing. Wanna go somewhere fun?"

Ann blinks at this information--though she supposes it makes sort of sense, given the colourful assortment of Goro Akechis she's met here and Ren's own admission that he was new to the Thieves--and then shrugs. Fuck it; he's been friendly enough and he had good taste in ice cream. Plus, she thinks she'd just about kill to be out of this room.

She smiles, all mischievous cat. "Sure. Got anywhere in mind?"

This Takamaki bears the weight of responsibility in a way the one in Ren's world doesn't, but they used to be the same, or similar enough. And Ren has gotten to know his world's Takamaki a little. Well enough for the ice cream, for one thing, and well enough to take a guess here too.

"I guess there's always Dome Town or something, but I was thinking Harajuku. All the shops are still there, you just don't have to pay. Endless free stuff." He raises his eyebrows.

It may call to mind the question of why his own clothes are shabby, a little. But never mind that.

Ann's pretty used to free fashion--from both her parents and some jobs she's worked, where they're happy to let you take home what you wore as an excuse to give you a smaller paycheck--but that doesn't mean she's tired of it. Never! She loves free stuff; who doesn't?

"We could get coffee, too," she suggests. "Make it a proper 'shopping' experience." She wonders if Ren will let her dress him up a bit...Akira was always so busy when she brought up the idea, but there's a part of her that's convinced he was just finding excuses to not play living Barbie doll.

And the thing is, Ren is so, so tired of putting on an act for other people, but when the topic comes up, he'll find that he doesn't mind letting Takamaki choose clothes for him. He hasn't been acting this whole time, really. He likes Takamaki, and he wants to be liked in return (desperately, more than anything, please someone), and if she hasn't figured out what he is from what he said before, she'll get there eventually. So he'll enjoy it while he can.

"Sounds good." He deposits his spoon and his empty cup on Igor's desk. The cryptic piece of shit can just deal with it. Disintegrate it with laser vision or something. "I'll probably need the fuel. I've never been on a real shopping trip like this before."

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