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Apr. 27th, 2022 12:15 am
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I need this now apparently

Date: 2022-08-06 05:32 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] expiera
Having reached that conclusion through your own experiences, do you understand how that affects your current position?

[Yet it sounds more leading than chiding, especially with awareness of what transpired right before they embarked on this walk. Which they still have quite some ways to go, at their current steady and unhurried pace.]

Date: 2022-08-06 06:24 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] expiera
[She does.

And with Gray's analogy, Ciel briefly thinks of a third life. One so full of misery that it begs for death, an existence that has caused or experienced so much regret and suffering already that death would be a reprieve, if not kinder than it deserves. Where would that one fall, then?

...Semantics.]


As a gravekeeper, as you first were, [before Aions, before Kenoma,] what do you wish to do about it?

Date: 2022-08-07 01:55 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] expiera
[So, Gray already reached her own conclusion and knows where she stands.

That's good.]


So that's your answer.

How well do you know Howl, Barnaby, and Liem, Gray?

Date: 2022-08-07 07:04 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] expiera
That's good enough.

[The first hint of something, since this 'quizzing' began.]

Barnaby and Liem were part of the Venera team, but both haven't been seen and are unreachable since everyone got back to Achamoth. Do you know why?

Date: 2022-08-08 03:38 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] expiera
Correct. The Venera team was assigned to quietly take out dissenting citizens who opposed the Regent. Whatever their reasons may have been, they ultimately couldn't obey that directive, and after they were caught and apprehended, we haven't heard news of them since.

[They keep walking, and a heavy silence falls. For what it's worth, Gray isn't asked a question, following that statement.]

Date: 2022-08-08 04:44 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] expiera
[Because it doesn't matter, once everything is gone for good.]

Because life is full of contradictions, humanity is irrational at its core. What we excel at, more than any other conscious life form, is justify to ourselves what we wholeheartedly believe to be right at any given cost.

[She answers with something that must sound nonsensical. Something one who isn't human may say. But as one who's glimpsed the inner workings of the Clock Tower, maybe Gray would be better poised to understand that statement more than most others around.

On that note, she finally turns slightly to glance back at Gray.]


What about the other side? Can you say that you've gained a better understanding of the Pleroma since you first arrived on Horos, know their goal with the same clarity as you've come to witness of the Kenoma?

Date: 2022-08-08 05:12 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] expiera
That's right. It's selfish to want things, but that's also what makes the want human, it's how our souls are defined. It means they're living in accordance to their values, and it's what lets them stay as themselves.

[She's slowed her pace now, fallen in line at Gray's side instead of leading the front without looking her way at all.]

What do you want, Gray? What kind of life do you want to live, for what you believe in?

[A beat.]

Or what do you not want, if the other way is too hard to say?

Date: 2022-08-08 06:09 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] expiera
Then more important than stand by what you believe in, fight for it if necessary, you have to protect the parts of yourself that make you feel that way.

[Ciel stops, turning fully now to face the meekly hooded girl who's keeping her head low. She can't wipe her tears. It's not within her right. All she can do... Is this. Nag and lecture and talk, for what little worth these words amount to.]

Do you understand, Gray?

[They're alone. Ciel's made sure of it. They're so far out that they've almost reached the beach, and no one comes to these parts for no reason. Visibility is good too: you can see far, anyone possibly tailing them will need to be physically and magically skilled at presence concealment to slip through a gravekeeper and a Burial Agent.

So she speaks freely, because it's all she can do for this girl. Horos... Is truly an unkind place.]

Date: 2022-08-08 10:58 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] expiera
You'll never find out, if you don't try.

[Gray is someone who can, unlike Ciel. That's why she won't give her empty platitudes, let it be vapid encouragement or criticism that leaves no room for argument.]

And if you don't, then you'll stay as you are. You'll continue to struggle, until what you can't reconcile with grinds you away.

[If she stays here with the Kenoma, it will chip at her until what makes Gray Gray is no more. It's perhaps more warning than advice: she needs to leave this nest, before the greater beasts that prowl around it eat her whole.]

Will you try?

[Can she spread her wings and fly?]

1/2

Date: 2022-08-09 09:18 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] expiera
[For a split second, her expression softens. Good.]

2/2

Date: 2022-08-09 09:18 pm (UTC)
From: [personal profile] expiera
[Isn't Gray bold now, to turn things back on her just like that?]

What do you mean?

Date: 2022-08-10 07:28 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] expiera
[Ah, so that's what she's fretting over. Hah...]

I am all that and worse, Gray. I made my choice to be on this side from the very beginning. You wouldn't have been pushed into this difficult position if not for what I did, right?

[Folding her hands at her back, she answers calmly, easily.]

So in a sense, I suppose I really have no room to talk... But should you really be worrying about me, when your own situation is a lot more dangerous now?

Date: 2022-08-12 03:24 am (UTC)
From: [personal profile] expiera
[She just laughs a little. The sound is easy, but not very mirthful.]

If you're suspected of acting against orders, your allies, or sympathizing with the enemy, it's only a matter of time before you get in trouble with things no one can help you with. That's why you can't stay here forever, Gray. Why you'll fade away little by little, unless you take the steps to start moving and change for yourself.

[She's too kind, too hopeful to be here, it's as simple as that.]

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