[ What had Therese wanted. Freedom. Respect. Maybe love? Maybe. Would she have stayed if Annie had loved her more, loved her better? Had Annie ever loved her? Or had she used her, because she needed that Therese's uptight bullshit to stop her from killing herself on the far side of saving the world. Does she love Noctis, or is it exactly the same. She just eats everyone. Uses them up until they're empty or they somehow slip free of her. She doesn't need them as people, she needs them like energy, to be depleted. Her heart beats hard in her throat. ]
It's not-- That simple. There some people who wanted to just... kill all the remaining normals. Start over all pathos. And then there were people... who wanted the pathos in power, and we'd figure out the normals from there. And then the rest just... wanted to go home and be left alone.
[ The rest: Annie. Tired. Used up. Wanting to go home. ]
And we voted down pathos power. [ Therese's face when Annie had tried to talk her in to going home, to being quiet, keeping things the way they'd always been-- ] So, uh, she does her own thing now. Has her own group, and they want to be recognized...
[He's reaching out with his mind, searching for feelings and images to fill the holes in this explanation that he's being given. She may be telling him that they disagreed and went their separate ways, but they were friends, weren't they? They must've been close, they must've been through a lot together. It's hard, he thinks, to just turn around and walk away. To wish them the best, because you just don't agree.
Yes, there's probably more to it than that. Raw emotion, a terrible goodbye. No goodbye at all. Which one?]
Did she want to kill, or did she want to lead them to rule?
[ What had Therese wanted. It's still not a question Annie can fully answer because she had never really wanted to know. She hadn't heard what Therese had wanted. She had just wanted to go home, and she had wanted Therese to come with her. To help run the school, to help train the kids, to help keep her together, to hide away in the quiet, out of sight. Annie runs her tongue over her teeth, trying to figure out the words, ]
She just didn't want to go back.
[ Back to the cramped cage, the hiding, the school, business as usual. ]
So, uh, now she's a terrorist, I guess. You'd call that...
[He frowns at that description, of being a "terrorist". He can't hope to judge one way or another, given he can't hope to know the complications of her world, but as a general rule, the implications of being a terrorist are often negative in his mind.
But he doesn't have to voice that opinion. He's sure Annie can feel it in his mind, and so, instead:]
Must've been difficult, having to part ways with someone you were close to like that. Especially if you didn't agree on how she was going to around... handling things.
[ She wants to snap at him. To tell him to shut up, that she doesn't feel fuck all about it-- But she's supposed to be expressing some kind of contrition for not dealing with his stupid fucking feelings. How is she meant to deal with his shit when she can't deal with her own.
Then again: the fuck does he know about it. His stupid fairy tale world where his friends all stood beside him until the end. Did he somehow deserve that more than she did? That thought bursts furiously in her chest, the defiance that of course he doesn't. The self-hatred of knowing: of course he does. Her hands curl. ]
[That sure doesn't sound nor feel like "fine", Annie. It's like the cut of a knife, and while Noctis doesn't quite recoil from it, he does mentally lean away.]
Sorry.
[Again, another "sorry".
But he'd chide her, he really would, if he hooked onto those thoughts of him "deserving" friends who stood by his side more. He would say that the situation wasn't the same, that it was the literal end of the world. That there was no other side for them to stand on, that he was the only person who could bring light back to Eos. Maybe that's selling his friends short, though. Or maybe that's just Noctis once more not giving himself credit where it's due. Either way, who the hell is to say who's deserving and who isn't?
He knows that an apology won't stick, so he tries to mutter something else out. His lack of eloquence forever remains a detriment.]
[ Sorry? Sorry for what? Sorry you're so twisted up about something you had total control over? Sorry you just let your friend take off to become a supremacist? The more she talks about this, the more she feels like she's letting something rotting show. Exposing another layer of what the hell is wrong with her and wondering how many of those she can have before it's just too much. ]
Sonupath, she... could do a lot of shit with her voice, including bursting your eardrums from across a room, if she felt like it.
[Sorry, because it sounds like it was difficult to say goodbye. Sorry, because losing a friend is a terrible thing, in a world that already sounded terrible. Sorry, in that he wishes he were sympathy incarnate, giving himself to others so that he could make them feel better about anything.
[He can't argue against that, though he certainly can't feel as if he relates. He feels... almost too soft in comparison. The young, awkward prince, growing up in the Citadel. Taught to fight, of course, but not in the same manner. Kept to himself, quiet and somewhat isolated, but loved all the same.]
[ There isn't even any kind of resistance or reluctance to that statement. ]
What, you think I went back to that fucking place just for the fun of it? I don't know anything else. I don't have a fucking life without that school.
[ And she had just wanted Therese to go with her. Play house. Play schoolgirls, like nothing had changed, like no one was dead. But they were all so very, very dead. ]
That doesn't mean it makes you happy to be there, though.
[But, to be fair, that's not what he asked. He sighs a little, not sure where he meant to take this conversation in the first place. Noctis moves to fidget with the ring on his finger, though it's covered by his stupid gloves.]
I was doing better, at home. Even though I went back because I didn't want things to change, shit was changing. I wasn't expected to do this shit anymore. And I wasn't making the kids do this shit. The missions.
[ There's a tension in the line of her shoulders, tension in her mouth, her jaw. ]
And now I'm doing it again.
[ Maybe that's her agreement: that it would be better than this. That she wouldn't be drinking again. That she wouldn't be hurting like this again. Drowning in this mission where too much time is spent hidden in robes, waiting. Stifled. Drowning. Hurting. Drowning. ]
[Maybe it is an agreement, sad as it is. His instinct is to once again ask how he can make it better, how he can make it hurt less, but even Noctis knows he has no real agency over the missions themselves. He can't force her to not care about the younger ones here. Why would he?]
You don't have to.
[Right?]
They're not forcing us to do anything, at the end of the day. You could sit at the station during the next mission. Refuse to take part in any of them. But then you'd have to actually not... care about the people planetside. Who's living and who's dying.
[Impossible for Noctis. Maybe impossible for Annie, too.]
Yes. Because I care about you. Remember those fucks trying to leave us behind on Shril? You think anything different is ever going to happen with these people?
[ She is literally never going to forgive them for that. ]
[That's a good point. Noctis can't really blame them for how quickly they had fled that day, on Shril. Why would they have waited for him, being as new as he was? But where Annie was concerned... he does feel a little indignant when it was her safety in question as well.]
I don't know. Things were a little crazy that day.
I told them they needed to think out that plan and actually get their shit together, but they let a fucking child run ahead and lead it anyway.
[ Maybe hypocritical of her, she had once been a child capable of leading those missions. She doesn't think Pidge has the training for it though, especially not after the actual results. ]
You can forgive them, that's what you do. But I don't trust them to do shit. I trust them to fight with each other and prioritize the people they know from home and their own broods.
[ She jabs a finger into the middle of his chest. ]
[He frowns at the finger jabbed at his chest, stepping back a little. But there's something about the timbre of her words that reveal he's not going to be able to change her mind about this.]
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somnifacient) wrote2017-03-25 01:39 am
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It's not-- That simple. There some people who wanted to just... kill all the remaining normals. Start over all pathos. And then there were people... who wanted the pathos in power, and we'd figure out the normals from there. And then the rest just... wanted to go home and be left alone.
[ The rest: Annie. Tired. Used up. Wanting to go home. ]
And we voted down pathos power. [ Therese's face when Annie had tried to talk her in to going home, to being quiet, keeping things the way they'd always been-- ] So, uh, she does her own thing now. Has her own group, and they want to be recognized...
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Yes, there's probably more to it than that. Raw emotion, a terrible goodbye. No goodbye at all. Which one?]
Did she want to kill, or did she want to lead them to rule?
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She just didn't want to go back.
[ Back to the cramped cage, the hiding, the school, business as usual. ]
So, uh, now she's a terrorist, I guess. You'd call that...
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But he doesn't have to voice that opinion. He's sure Annie can feel it in his mind, and so, instead:]
Must've been difficult, having to part ways with someone you were close to like that. Especially if you didn't agree on how she was going to around... handling things.
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Then again: the fuck does he know about it. His stupid fairy tale world where his friends all stood beside him until the end. Did he somehow deserve that more than she did? That thought bursts furiously in her chest, the defiance that of course he doesn't. The self-hatred of knowing: of course he does. Her hands curl. ]
Sure. Yeah. It's fine.
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Sorry.
[Again, another "sorry".
But he'd chide her, he really would, if he hooked onto those thoughts of him "deserving" friends who stood by his side more. He would say that the situation wasn't the same, that it was the literal end of the world. That there was no other side for them to stand on, that he was the only person who could bring light back to Eos. Maybe that's selling his friends short, though. Or maybe that's just Noctis once more not giving himself credit where it's due. Either way, who the hell is to say who's deserving and who isn't?
He knows that an apology won't stick, so he tries to mutter something else out. His lack of eloquence forever remains a detriment.]
What could she do? Her... power, I mean.
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Sonupath, she... could do a lot of shit with her voice, including bursting your eardrums from across a room, if she felt like it.
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Sorry just doesn't go a long way, these days.]
Sounds useful. And a little scary.
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[ Broken dolls trained to kill, to manipulate, to conquer, to lead, to rule. ]
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So you don't miss any of it?
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[ There isn't even any kind of resistance or reluctance to that statement. ]
What, you think I went back to that fucking place just for the fun of it? I don't know anything else. I don't have a fucking life without that school.
[ And she had just wanted Therese to go with her. Play house. Play schoolgirls, like nothing had changed, like no one was dead. But they were all so very, very dead. ]
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[But, to be fair, that's not what he asked. He sighs a little, not sure where he meant to take this conversation in the first place. Noctis moves to fidget with the ring on his finger, though it's covered by his stupid gloves.]
Still, guess it would be better than being here.
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[ She looks away at nothing. ]
I was doing better, at home. Even though I went back because I didn't want things to change, shit was changing. I wasn't expected to do this shit anymore. And I wasn't making the kids do this shit. The missions.
[ There's a tension in the line of her shoulders, tension in her mouth, her jaw. ]
And now I'm doing it again.
[ Maybe that's her agreement: that it would be better than this. That she wouldn't be drinking again. That she wouldn't be hurting like this again. Drowning in this mission where too much time is spent hidden in robes, waiting. Stifled. Drowning. Hurting. Drowning. ]
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You don't have to.
[Right?]
They're not forcing us to do anything, at the end of the day. You could sit at the station during the next mission. Refuse to take part in any of them. But then you'd have to actually not... care about the people planetside. Who's living and who's dying.
[Impossible for Noctis. Maybe impossible for Annie, too.]
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How am I supposed to not go with you?
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You know that I can take care of myself, right? That I had been doing that before I even arrived on the station?
[Carted around by three other people, but that's not the point.]
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[ Not even her, although she'd prefer to try than get anyone caught up in her bullshit. ]
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[Stubborn.]
I do have basic survival instincts, you know. And I'm technically an adult.
[TECHNICALLY]
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[ Equally. Stubborn. ]
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[A perpetual cycle of stubborn, apparently.]
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[ She is literally never going to forgive them for that. ]
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[That's a good point. Noctis can't really blame them for how quickly they had fled that day, on Shril. Why would they have waited for him, being as new as he was? But where Annie was concerned... he does feel a little indignant when it was her safety in question as well.]
I don't know. Things were a little crazy that day.
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[ Maybe hypocritical of her, she had once been a child capable of leading those missions. She doesn't think Pidge has the training for it though, especially not after the actual results. ]
You can forgive them, that's what you do. But I don't trust them to do shit. I trust them to fight with each other and prioritize the people they know from home and their own broods.
[ She jabs a finger into the middle of his chest. ]
You're it. You're priority.
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Not at the expense of your own safety.
[He can still try, middling effort that it is.]
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Sure, buddy.
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