Vʀɪsᴋᴀ Sᴇʀᴋᴇᴛ ♏ ᴀʀᴀᴄʜɴɪᴅsGʀɪᴘ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hypertoxic) wrote2016-01-03 12:00 am
hypertoxic) wrote2016-01-03 12:00 am
CONSIGNMENT; inbox
serket.vriska@cdc.org
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serket.vriska@cdc.org
(0) UNREAD MESSAGES
serket.vriska@cdc.org
(0) UNREAD MESSAGES
no subject
01
You might want to get into the bathroom for this one. Fair warning, and so on.
02
But sometimes I'm absurdly proud of you.
1/3
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... has she?
If he's proud of her, does that mean ... she's doing something right?
The emotional whiplash that comes from reading that statement is too much for her to handle. She shoves it down, away, where it can't force her to examine herself too closely, and takes the easy way out. ]
That was not enough warning for something so gross! ::::/
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Sorry. Next time I'll be sure to give you more notice.
Sephiroth's not on a good path. You saw it. He will fail. He's watching his chance, and whatever they offered him - well, it won't happen.
02
And there's more to aspire to than power for its own sake, and you saw that too. It's complicated, but you're learning, and doing it well.
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His belief in her.
It all crashes into her - her pain, her sorrow, her regret, her need, her loneliness, her anger, her ambitions and aspirations - her dreams. For more, for a better life. For one last chance not to fuck things up. And somehow -- somehow, she isn't -- she isn't fucking things up. If Simon's telling her that -- then she believes it. She can believe it, from him. The boy so scared of what she could be.
It burns, her everything. Her throat, her eyes. She has to swallow hard and stare sightlessly at the sky for a long moment before the feeling passes.
She cares about him too much. He means too much to her. Too much. ]
01
One of the hardest things I ever learned was that there are things more important than power.
Things more important than me.
02
Thank you. I needed the reminder why his teachings are a 8ad idea.
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She'd seemed so very alone right back at the start, crouched beneath her concealing hood on the crewship—and he'd tried to help her, because he was so alone. And then he'd nearly died, several times, and he'd found her to apologise despite all of her threats, because apologies are familiar, safe things that help set his world in order, and because if he'd died on the ice, he would have missed his chance.
What I want is a friend, she'd said. And what had he said? Friendship takes time. Right here and now, I can't give you that answer. But the CDC turned out to be a crucible, and she was made an example of—and then, at least in part outraged by what they'd done to her, he'd got the same.
And now they're friends. Except sometimes, now, he sees it when he closes his eyes:
Anyone, after all, can die. And often it's the brightest people who don't last. He's readying himself, as he is with everyone he cares about. But her most of all.]
Vriska, dear, it's fine.
But that was why I showed you the poem. Not "don't give up", quite. More "what we were isn't what we will be always, or should be always. And that's okay".
It is, you know.
[Not just her, of course, but him. Even at home, he knows there were horrors out there that make what he's going through look trivial. Sometimes he's ashamed.]
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May8e you're right.
I guess I am just not accustomed to anyone giving me a chance, or 8elieving I can actually make it.
02
It is sort of nice that you do.
[ She is honestly very glad they aren't having this conversation face to face. There are some things her ego still won't permit, and showing as much vulnerability as she is right now to anyone would be too much humiliation to bear. She knows it, can feel it on her face - all these tumultuous emotions, the dragging aching pain of self-realization, all of it's showing through. Rarely has she been so grateful to be alone.
Maybe someday it won't feel so fucking awful to let someone see her in a moment of weakness. ]
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I do believe in you. Don't get me wrong, here. You can be scary. And as I heard a lot when I was small, nice young girls don't raise their voices.
[It might be the first time he's mentioned anything about his home to her, and it's only a passing detail. He is thinking of what he knows she's done, but neither of them need to raise it.]
02
Power's not necessarily a bad thing to aspire to. But some ways to use it are better than others. I think you understand that, too.
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I know this might sound weird to a human, 8ut there aren't any "good" uses of power in my culture to aspire to. Power for trolls means conquering! 8eing strong, even if it's on the 8acks of everyone else.
02
I guess I don't really know what it means to use power in a "8etter" way.
03
8ut it's something I'll have to start trying to figure out.
04
You know, all along I thought 8eing a hero was pretty simple. Save the universe and 8am, hero for life! Or death. Eternity. Whatever! 8ut I think I was wrong a8out that. It's more simple. It's not just a8out saving people.
05
It's how you save them.
06
And may8e especially why.
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01
Plenty of human cultures went in for conquest. Still do, depending who you ask. But you're right, we usually mean something softer by power. Something you should use wisely, which few ever do.
02
It all seemed so unfair and wrong. And nothing you could really do but work at the edges to make it better. I never did, of course.
03
But what do you mean, how you save them? What would be a bad way to save someone?
[This might just be very, very important. A shame he hasn't elaborated, or told her anything much.]