[ There's something about his response that feels wrong. He says he feels grateful, and maybe he is, but there's nothing personal or passionate there, only a barren acceptance of the discipline he was given. He frames what was done to him as enlightenment, but to her ears it sounds like propaganda. ]
Are you aware of what I did in Venera, when those of us assigned there were ordered to arrest known rebels and dissidents? I helped rescue a number of them, even if that meant turning against the other Kenoma and attacking them. I rejected the Kenoma completely, and when I lost my powers, I was captured and returned to Achamoth.
[It's almost unnaturally calm, even robotic, the way Barnaby relays all these details -- or it would be, if not for the barely-contained spike of anxiety and distress that leaks across their connection. Even as twisted as he is now, even if he can repeat verbatim what the Regent has lead him to believe, that doesn't mean those events harmed him any less.]
Some of my memories are unclear after that. But I recall very clearly that the Regent showed me why I was mistaken to risk so much only for a handful of lives. Across all the many words, humanity always inflicts suffering and cruelty on itself. I saw countless atrocities, endless injustices... The indifference endured by those who suffer most, those born into neglect with no one to care for them, who are exploited and abused... The majority who live safe and comfortable lives, choosing to live in ignorance while those less fortunate than them are crushed under their heels...
[The details of what the Regent showed him, endless visions of horrors he could do nothing to fix, isn't something he wants to share with Gray. But it still gnaws at the edges of their connection, eating away at his tattered psyche like an insidious poison. And behind that all, the massive, overwhelming weight of the Regent's will, the weight of bearing witness an entire cosmos of suffering, a weight Barnaby had witnessed and now carried with him everywhere. A bitter sense of compassion and empathy for the very living things the Kenoma seeks to destroy.]
Ultimately, saving a few people won't be able to fix that fundamental flaw. A hero can only respond to those in distress in their path, but they can't rescue a society rotten at its very roots.
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What... misconceptions?
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[It's almost unnaturally calm, even robotic, the way Barnaby relays all these details -- or it would be, if not for the barely-contained spike of anxiety and distress that leaks across their connection. Even as twisted as he is now, even if he can repeat verbatim what the Regent has lead him to believe, that doesn't mean those events harmed him any less.]
Some of my memories are unclear after that. But I recall very clearly that the Regent showed me why I was mistaken to risk so much only for a handful of lives. Across all the many words, humanity always inflicts suffering and cruelty on itself. I saw countless atrocities, endless injustices... The indifference endured by those who suffer most, those born into neglect with no one to care for them, who are exploited and abused... The majority who live safe and comfortable lives, choosing to live in ignorance while those less fortunate than them are crushed under their heels...
[The details of what the Regent showed him, endless visions of horrors he could do nothing to fix, isn't something he wants to share with Gray. But it still gnaws at the edges of their connection, eating away at his tattered psyche like an insidious poison. And behind that all, the massive, overwhelming weight of the Regent's will, the weight of bearing witness an entire cosmos of suffering, a weight Barnaby had witnessed and now carried with him everywhere. A bitter sense of compassion and empathy for the very living things the Kenoma seeks to destroy.]
Ultimately, saving a few people won't be able to fix that fundamental flaw. A hero can only respond to those in distress in their path, but they can't rescue a society rotten at its very roots.
That is the misconception I had, Gray.