station72 | In The End

[ The sea. Still more idea than reality to the girl from the scorched wastes. The imagining of it rises up on her, waves smothering out the fever in her thoughts, releasing steam. Still, the sea makes her hydrophobia pique, a subtle fearful niggling that makes her brows crease inward. She has been taught to swim in the Station's pool, but there is something more horrifying than merely the idea of drowning... Something secret and sinister in the depths.

So at odds with what Carata presents to her. The warm island and glittering expanse. Dissonant, but Ilde takes it for what it is: an example of what her fear does her perceptions. She tenses her jaw, trying to focus through it. ]

Where did you think your life would take you, before all of this?

Usually I thought I would stay there. Not all chose to, but it suited me. Sometimes I thought that perhaps I would go across the sea and spend time on the mainland. Or perhaps I would go to another Sanctum, to see how it differed.

[A hundred thousand idle thoughts, let to pass by, floating on the wind like errant seeds, some of which might, eventually, fall on unfamiliar soil and sprout. Or not.]

But I was not married to anything in particular. I would go wherever the path lead.

[She'd never imagined it would lead her to where it had, but that was the thing about life. You could not predict it. It occurred, random and inescapable. You had to adapt. To move with it. She had moved further than most.]

Where did you think yours would take you?

Death.

[ Certitude, and her meaning is not a euphemistic one. ]

My world was doomed, before the Enemy came to it. I am certain it is gone now, Dreus would never have allowed that scourge to take it.

[ She had been trying not to think about him, but he cannot be erased. The more she frees herself from his poison, the more aware she is of it lingering. ]

It was inevitable. His fires burned more brightly every passing day. I should never have turned twenty one.

[There's no shock from Carata, not an ounce of horror. She almost shrugs-]

That is where we all end.

[The one constant, in the entire universe, in every universe, was death. All things died. No matter how powerful or unbreakable they seemed. People. Gods. Planets. Stars. The Universe itself. A surety, one that could not be avoided. It was why it was so important to live while you were able.]

Perhaps. I doubt the enemy lingered when you left. You paint it as a place with very little to offer. [One that collapsed without the guiding hand of their hunters.]

But you did. You never imagined anything else?

[ Carata's lack of horror is pleasant. Ilde knows how terrible touching her mind can be... How some recoil from all her memories of scorched earth and a madman. It brings her misery and anger down another notch. ]

Never. Everything was very small, very short.

[ Everything was brutal and dire, it makes it difficult for her to manage her emotions in a life with so much more time and space. To her, Petre was an immediate and terrible threat. Rather than something which could be molded and dealt with. So it lingers. Too hot, too dire. ]

[And she had adapted to it. perhaps too well. This life must have been a more difficult change for her even than it was for most.]

It is time to change then, isn't it? Whoever you were there was made to survive that place. If she can't survive this one, maybe you should leave her there. If she only imagined death, give it to her. Become someone who imagines something else.

[Carata hadn't done it as bluntly as that. She'd changed what she needed to, but she'd never had to abandon her whole self so abruptly. The her of her past was not the her of now, and she had become a different person, but it had been in subtle stages. Still, she had been taught that at times such a gradual thing was not what was needed. Sometimes you needed a blade.]

[ Not the first to say it to her. Not the last. Every time Ilde hears the words and understands the sentiment beneath them, and for a moment she thinks perhaps she make it so. But then the doubt creeps in. Fear of herself: a person she has only just begun to know. She had thought that she was so self-possessed, so self-aware, but every moment since she left the burning world has been a direct contradiction to the idea.

She stares at nothing for a moment, and thinks of dying. She has not cried since she was a child, and she most certainly won't begin now, but a vast empty filling exudes from her, the place where that emotion can no longer manifest. An abrupt lack.

A sigh. ]

Yes. I think on this often.

[ But something holds her back from making it a reality. It will come, one day. ]

What do you think your purpose is, now?

[There is a weariness to the emptiness that drains out so much from her, Perhaps it is preferable to the fire that had burned. Perhaps not. It isn't what Carata would hope to leave her with.]

It hasn't changed. For as random as life is, as many things there are that you cannot change, you can control yourself. So, wherever life takes me, it is my responsibility to seek contentment with it, and to help others to as well.

[She lived the best she could. Sought the joy in simplicity. Her people were not blind, they knew it was difficult to be content- to be at peace- when you lacked, when you were starving or suffering or your unhappiness was too deep. So it was their choice to help where they could, to the extent that they could, and no more.]

Tell me, Ilde, what's bothering you?

[Like she hadn't felt it. Saying it, though, mattered at times. She reaches out her hand to lay it across Ilde's own, telegraphed and slow so that, if she chose, she could easily avoid it.]

[ There are so many things troubling her. Her feud with Petre is perhaps more symptom than root cause of it all, and so she is silent for a long moment trying to find the core of it all, to put that into words. Her mouth opens but nothing comes out and she stares out off the rooftop at the city beyond. ]

Everything was laid out before me. I served a great destiny, and in it I could do no wrong. I would die as the one shining example of humanity. Faultless. Untouched.

[ She's twenty years old. Destined to redeem mankind's soul as they all died together in one great glorious burst of fire to atone for all the wrong they had done... Perfection. Martyrdom. They are heavy enough to bear, without now... being free of it all. The freedom is more frightening than anything else. Most of the time. ]

Everything I know was taught to me by a madman who saw me as an angel.

[ She stops for a moment, another place where tears would go if she were emotionally functional but long years of constant anxiety have robbed her of it. She works only in extremes, either this abrupt lack or overflowing with more than she can tolerate. ]

Without him... without his control and his power... [ She's struggling for the words. ] I have to take his place. To myself.

[ She puts her free hand on her chest, staring deeply at Carata, wondering if she understands.

Power. And control. Her inability to feel secure makes her dangerous. ]

[It's easy to understand, with her skin to her skin and her mind to her mind. In a way her sense of self was stronger than Carata's, than most, but it was so rooted in what someone else decided she was. A man without conscious or empathy. And now she was expected to be her own woman. And for her that went with control.

She would find little comfort in hearing that the control she was looking for- that absolute control- it wasn't possible. Not in a place like this. Not for a person like her. Which was right, good, but no comfort when that's all she knew to want.]

A frightening thing. [A pause, her fingers curled light and warm over Ilde's]

There are many things that may happen, good and bad. To dwell on a single possibility will blind you to others. Be open, if you can. You are not alone, for now.

I'm not alone.

[ She agrees, it's all too true that she has a brood she is close with and others who she cherishes. But what will that do to her, her desire to keep them?

She looks back out over the city. ]

I hate Petre, the blonde boy with the sneer. He is a parasite. Why is that deceiving, flesh-eating little monster considered one of us.

[ Although declaring her hate, her tone is quite calm now. ]

[Good things perhaps. Perhaps bad. Impossible to say at this point.]

Because he is. You may not like it, and you don't have to like him, but he has a right to this life, the same as the rest of us.

[She didn't mind Petre much. He was childish, simple in many ways. Dangerous, certainly, but no more than many other Hosts. She thought, with the right encouragement, he could do good things.

Or maybe not.]

I suggest you avoid him, if he bothers you. I believe you would he happier.

Edited 2016-08-01 04:37 (UTC)

[ About the answer she expected honestly and she nods. Really, for the moment she chooses to hold Carata's hand loosely and look out over the city, rather be upset. ]

I am ensnared to him. He has ties to some I value most. I do not worry for Kylo Ren, and I can do nothing to remove him from Angel.

[ So for now they're stuck. ]

I will resolve him, one day.

[ She means fucking kill him. ]

Perhaps you could learn to see the value that they see in him.

[And if not-

All things change. It's very likely she won't have to resolve him. Hosts who could not make peace with the rest often suffered for it. None of them were guaranteed survival, and every single thing was guaranteed and eventual death.]

Whatever happens, it will be okay.

In The End

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