SUNDAY
AUGUST 7TH, 2011
(Don't
Speak Its True Name
VII: Friend)
1:24
AM
"Rael,
what are you doing?"
"Why are you playing Paper Mario?
Your friends have made it to Dominiere and will be here any
minute."
I
just.. I needed to get through Chapter 6. Needed to get through that
slog, needed to put it behind me. Even though I won't ever return
here, it didn't feel right to leave it the way it was.
I'm done
now.
1:25
AM
I'm
dressed. I'm up. I've got Hackett. I will need to get a new journal
somewhere, as this one's running out of pages (and I've reached the
end of the surplus that Ginger provided me with), but that's a
problem for later.
Are you guys, like.. are you coming with? Do
we have space in the car?
"Traveling
in a car would be a poor use of our time. We will meet you wherever
you are."
"When we are not busy."
So
you're not busy now?
…
They
looked at each other for a moment and then vanished.
I guess
they have godly things to do.
Well, thanks for the help, guys.
:)
1:26
AM
Went
down the stairs, went into the George.
As usual, it is open. I
don't think I've ever seen this place closed.
It's always the
same bartender, and a lot of the same regulars.
Because it's not
real.
It's
as fake as the carnival and the market.
Nobody
wants to look at me. They
could be all evil and suspicious and they know that I know that they
know. Or maybe they're just legitimately busy.
1:27
AM
Waiting
around outside. Waiting for a car. Right? They'll be arriving by car?
They spent some time yesterday looking for a car.
Yep.
Just
gotta stand here. Looking out into the night.
The fresh air is
nice. How long have I been stuffed up in a bedroom? It's been.. a few
days now.
I do still feel sluggish. Didn't really want to get
out of bed, even knowing what sleep is
here.
Didn't I dream that? No, the Fentzy thing was before I
slept. And my dreams were filled with.. real stuff?
1:28
AM
still
some groups of people out walking tonight.
evenin'.
how you
doing.
1:29
AM
"There
he is."
Oh! They're walking. No car?
donnie "We
had to park. Well, I guess we didn't have
to,
but we couldn't be sure."
danny "We didn't want to
pull up, only to find you were still in bed, so we'd need to keep the
car idling outside…"
bones "We're not
assholes."
danny "Loud fucking cars, with their loud
fucking engines, at 1 AM. This street doesn't even have
sidewalks."
donnie "Pavements."
danny
"Sidewalks. So the cars go right up next to the hotel, and, it's
1 AM, and, seriously, who does
that?"
bones "Assholes."
danny "Also we
all wanted to stretch our legs."
fentzy "I've
gotta shit."
danny "Yeah, that too."
bones
"TMI, Rauri."
fentzy "Fuck you guys. Are we
children?"
1:31
AM
Donnie
went in with Fentzy to ask to use the pub's restroom, not wanting
anyone to be alone in there. Just in case.
Now we, The Boys, are
all waiting around outside.
Except
Bones, who's kind of ambling around all over the place, can't stand
still.
Thanks,
guys. For coming back.
danny "We weren't gonna leave you.
We're pretty sure you weren't gonna leave us either."
Definitely
not. Yesterday, I even saved…
...huh, that's not gonna make
much sense to say out loud, is it.
1:32
AM
"Derek,
what the heck are you doing, can you just stay put, you're wigging me
out."
"Sorry. Just keeping an eye out in case
something goes wrong."
"If
something goes wrong, we'll handle it. That's what we do, we handle
shit."
"We couldn't handle getting thrown in fuckin'
jail."
"It worked out."
"It
took some serious luck for it to work out. We can't count on that.
Let me keep an eye out, okay?"
"Okay."
"...so,
Jordan."
Hey, Danny.
"Rauri
said something about being really sick, and you helping her out. Tell
me something: How do you help
with being sick?"
It's. A long story.
"I've got
time."
I think it'd make more sense to tell all of you guys
at once.
"Yeah, but. Who knows how long she'll be? And I'd
really like to know the story."
Man. It's inefficient to
have to tell it this way, but. Sure. Okay, gather round. Let me tell
you how it all went.
1:33
AM
So
first of all. I've been stuck in my own head for some days now.
"I
thought I'd picked up on that when we arrived, yeah."
Donnie
and I have been through a lot, and I've been used to working as a
duo. Having five now is a change, and I had to really.. decide what I
wanted. When we got here, Dominiere seemed to me like a good space to
take time and find an answer. It definitely took time. But what I
didn't know, what you guys all suspected, was that Dominiere is a
trap. You got nabbed by the Genera, right?
"I. Yeah. How
did you know?"
There's Fears here who had a lot to say to
me. Fears
who aren't really interested in killing me, or you, or any of
us.
"You.. work with the Fears?"
I know. Donnie
and I already got a little strained because of this.
"I'll
bet you did. You know what they do,
right?"
I do. And it's because
I know how dangerous they are that, when there's no way around them
but through, I'm willing to talk it out.
"Do you.. make
deals? Do they ask you to give up innocent people?"
No,
jesus, they're not the mafia,
they're not a drug
cartel.
They're.. they're gods.
Each one has his own motivations. And some of them think this red sky
is a bigger threat than humans like you and me.
"..alright,
well. So there's Fears here,
in Dominiere. They tell you about the Genera?"
A woman in a
mirror did. And the Musicians did too, in their own way. I don't know
enough about the woman in the mirror, and I guess
I don't really know enough about the Musicians either, but I've at
least had enough run-ins with them to recognize that they refuse to
do me any physical harm. They were asked by the Archangel to stop me,
I think, and they aren't doing
that.
"So they're against Archie."
Huh,
you call him that too. Yeah, I mean, I know they're definitely not
always aligned with him. Archie's kind of a prick.
"He's..
I guess he was my first Fear. He made a fucking impression."
I
think our first Fear always does. We're probably not meant to survive
long enough to meet more than one, but these are.. definitely
circumstances.
"So the Musicians told you about the Genera.
You had a talk with them here."
God, it was trippy. It was
like a dream that lasted multiple days. ...actually, twice, but I'm
still getting to that. The first dream was the Musicians talking to
me directly, seeing what I'm made of, arguing with each other, and..
offering to help. And then, when I woke up from that one, Bones was
gone.
..bones nodded. he's been listening.
So that'll have
been when he was grabbed by the Genera too. And I had a conversation
then with the woman in the mirror, and she
told me about the Genera, told me in plain terms. Didn't tell me you
guys were kidnapped, but instead she made it clear that we should be
looking into them. That's what sent Donnie off in search of the
trucks, and... hoo, okay, this is where things started happening.
now
bones has approached, to listen closer, next to danny.
I was
supposed to go with Donnie. But Fentzy was still in her hotel room,
she was getting sick, and I recognized
that sick, I had been similarly sick when we arrived in Dominiere. So
I came back to get her, said I'd meet up with Donnie later.
Did
Fentzy.. tell you the state she was in? When I found her?
bones
"Just that she was sick."
Dominiere was eating her
alive. Tubes coming out of the walls, sucking fluids out of her and
pumping strange new fluids in.
It
had been doing that to me too whenever I slept. And to Donnie. And to
you, Bones.
"..what."
Danny,
you're safe because you never slept here.
danny "Man,
that's.. I don't care about that, my friends
were going through it!"
So. I took my sword and I cut
Fentzy free, I got her up, I sent her out. I thought
I went with her, but, see, I didn't. Dominiere knocked me out,
replaced her with me.
Was feeding on me.
And the Musicians helped
me out
by giving me dreams
of what you guys were up to, as well as a little.. more
information.
I dreamt of you guys in the Genera, in a warehouse
owned by
the Genera. Kept in a cage, right? Both of you in one cage?
...little
nods. keep talking. okay.
The woman keeping you there is named
Lilith. And you never met her, did you?
bones "I saw her
briefly when I first got there, but she blindfolded me."
danny
"Same, blindfolded."
The Musicians made a point of
having me dream of all of us breaking you out, then having a long
talk with Lilith. And Lilith told me the truth about Dominiere.
It's
a baby Fear. A baby.. uh.. Empty City. The Genera calls it an
"underscore." It needs people to live in it to keep it
going. And these people here, they're not real either. The real ones
are being kept in pods in trucks.
....the looks on their faces
confirm it. I really did dream the truth.
Those real people,
they're zombies. Archie's zombies. Archie made a deal with the Genera
to provide fodder for Dominiere, and... god, what was it, it was
Indisen somehow. The people here,
in town, are Indisen
of Archie's zombies. Fed to Dominiere to act as its perfectly happy
self-sustaining community, to sleep with the tubes eating them alive,
to give life to these buildings until Dominiere can mature and break
off and become its own.. floating.. city. Floating in the nether, the
void. However it works. I wasn't told everything.
bones
"This is an Empty City? This is how one begins?"
Yeah,
in my dream you seemed to know about the City too, you have
experience with it?
"I
told you before that I spent a lot of time in the Doors,
right?"
Pretty sure I didn't just dream that part,
yeah.
"Some of the Doors in Xanadu took me to a city, more
so earlier on. A living city, with a consciousness in the walls. I
didn't like to spend much time there,
I kinda got creeped out, but in hindsight I feel like I probably
could have.. tried talking with it. It didn't feel like it was
threatening me. It felt more like it was dying."
A
consciousness? What do you mean? How could you tell it was
dying?
"There was.. oh man, I don't know if I'm
ready to tell that one yet. A voice leading me through a maze. I
never met the person the voice belonged to, but I got the impression
I never would, that the voice wasn't actually a person."
danny
"God, first Jordan admits he talks to Fears, now you
too?"
"Well, hang on, is the Empty City a Fear?"
Yeah,
I'm pretty sure it is.
"...well, shit. I guess I did,
then."
Oh yeah, and, Bones. You and I talked about the
Knights of Xanadu already, right?
"Before we got to
Dominiere, yeah. Around the same time we all agreed our goal was to
head east, and that's what I told the, uh, the purple faces, that led
us here to begin with."
God, then that makes sense. I, uh,
dreamed of that whole conversation happening again. Not
important.
danny
"You guys talked about it because you'd just done a whole
obviously weird fuckin' guitar duel. And obviously you'd want to talk
about it afterwards, and what it means."
Yeah, I realize
that now,
look, a lot has happened this week!
"YOU CAN SAY THAT
AGAIN, BITCH"
fentzy clapped me on the back!!
1:44
AM
We
are on the way out of town now, walking back to where they'd parked
their car.
I had to tell the whole story again for Donnie and
Fentzy, but Danny told parts of it himself. Fentzy did not like
hearing about the tubes, and Donnie got really worried about me, and
I had the damndest sense of deja vu through the whole thing.
Plus
now I get to worry about if maybe I'm still dreaming. Maybe I fell
back asleep, maybe I shouldn't have played Paper Mario.
2:00
AM
Maybe
he shouldn't, maybe he should,
Maybe a baby City knows his
bubble's more trouble than he's worth.
As they walk their way
towards the wood,
They face no opposition, only double-vision as
we see them off.
Good luck on your journey, good luck heading
east!
May the music you make together take form!
Good luck
with the Harlot, good luck with the Beast!
Each day's hotter
than the last...
here where the blood is warm.
2:04
AM
There
they are, standing dramatically on a rooftop, side by side in their
coats and hats, flickering and simmering like in a heatwave.
I
waved at them, and they're gone.
...fentzy asked who I was
waving to. "are we being followed? are we in danger?"
don't
worry about it. I think we're good. I think Dominiere's letting us
go, this time.
"Yeah, 'cause together we can't be
stopped."
:)
"Now c'mon, come walk up front with
me. We've got stuff to talk about."
2:05
AM
the
other three are engaged in a timeless discussion of "Which would
you rather?" I think Donnie's
comparing a million Rapture Ducks to one particularly large Rapture
Duck.
up front, idly leading their footfall, is she.
Hi
Fentzy.
"Hi, Jordan. You're with us now. You're not..
overwhelmed. Right?"
Honestly, I'm so glad to see all of
you. You guys just caught me at a bad time, that's all. I'm good
now.
"You don't have to explain that to me. I know what
it's like. And I know you. I know what you've been through. Before
all this, even."
Yeah. .w. And I know what you've been
through.
"I just want to know that you're alright. If I'd
have known you were coming to America in the first place, I would
have stayed near home, I would have found a way."
You
would have, I know, it's okay. We met up regardless. c:
"You,
me, and Danny. It's kinda awesome. Now we just need to find Anna,
Lizzy, and Zonic, and we'll have everyone, all our chao circle."
What
about.. Autumn? And celebi, and Rick--
"No Rick,
thanks."
Right, of course. Just, I guess I sorta owe that
guy by now. He was the one who invited me onto AIM in the first
place. Just by bringing me into that group chat, he.. changed my
life. Kept me buoyant throughout a really bad time. Really
bad time.
"Yeah. But that's just an incidental thing.
We
kept you buoyant.
He
himself is an asshole."
Fair.
....I did, uh, find
Anna.
"You did? Seriously? I was kinda just joking, the
odds were already dumb. But you didn't bring her with you?"
I
couldn't.
"You mean she didn't want to come?"
I
mean. ._.
"...for
real?" sad voice.
I found her too late. I'm still kinda.. I
still feel guilty.
"You don't have to.. talk about it. I
promise. God, that sucks. That really pisses me off."
It
all sucks. The world is on fire.
"Yeah, but she meant a lot
to us. The world is, what does the world matter? When compared to our
friends."
>_<
"Well. That just makes me
want to stick closer with who I have. I'm not gonna let the same
happen to you."
hand on shoulder.
2:06
AM
"..so,
Donnie, huh?"
Yeah. .w.
"Got you a nice British
girl."
Yeah!!!
.w.
"Is she.. right for you? Is she dominant? ;)"
Um!!!!
>w<
"She is
cute. I'm kinda jealous. I mean, envious. Wish I had her."
Well!!!
I don't know how this works. Maybe if you asked?
"Whoa, I'm
only joking! You deserve her, and she deserves you."
Well..
thanks. :)
..you and her have spoken a bit, right?
"We
have. Yeah. I like her."
She told me that she, uh, told
you.. that I had a crush on you.
"You.. don't need to bring
that up. It's okay."
You sure? o:
"Yeah. You and
I are best friends. We've, y'know, talked about things that only the
best
of friends can. No need to put a word to it."
...you... you
sure?
o_o
"Donnie
might just be a little.. confused about our friendship. That's
all."
...I think I'm
starting to get confused here too.
"I won't let anything
happen to you, or
to Donnie. But I also am not going to give you up. Like.. ha! Like
that song. Never going to.. give you up."
oh
christ. yeah. that.
"Yeah. So, we're friends. You, me, and
Donnie. Okay?"
Okay. c:
"And I'll help you deal
with the Fears. And you'll help me save my sister. Deal?"
Oh!
Your sister! o: Are you.. ready to talk about that?
"Yes. I
just am not ready to talk about it with people who might, like...
think she's a lost cause. Because she's not. She's still around.
She's so strong, she can handle
it. She's just.. she's.. she's with the Beast right now."
Oh…
"Do
you know about him?"
Some? He's the original slender man.
And he's trapped in the deepest darkness of Xanadu.
"So
that's
where she is. So, you and me, you know what we have to do."
I..
think I see, yeah.
"We're headed east, we're following the
rabbit holes anyway. We want to find one that takes us into darkness.
But we want to be prepared.
Ready for a fight. And we want to go down there and find the Beast,
and
make
him give us my sister back."
Sure, but, Fentzy... I mean,
are you sure about this plan? Donnie and I have already been to the
world where the Beast is being kept, I mean I think.
It's.. a bit of a big deal, to go down there all the way... and what
if we just make a huge
enemy?
"Well, then we just have to keep planning. That's
what's good about being together, you can tell me these important
things."
So we don't have to do it right away. o: Okay. We
can talk this through, figure it out.
2:10
AM
Car
park. Parking lot. Canada, right. So. Car park. I think.
The
five of us are squeezing in that thing? That little tiny silver
car?
Fentzy wants to drive. And she wants me in the passenger
seat. I won't be sleeping any time soon, so,
I can do that.
Back in a car again. Finally leaving Dominiere.
Finally up and going, me and my friends.
Splendor sine occasu,
motherfucker!
2:17
AM
already
hit the woods.
the town is behind us.
am I awake? rest my
head, close my eyes, feel my body, try to see if I can feel anything
draining.
... u_u
2:19
AM
donnie's
passing around bottles of water. she's got some squash to go with it,
picked it up from a gas station they passed on the way
here.
blackcurrent. not bad. knock-off ribena.
she's
looking at me with a bright smile. she's so glad to see me.
I..
yeah. >w<
yeah.
kinda wish it was still just me and
her.
because I don't know how this is going to go.
but. I
can't worry about that right now.
instead, right now, I think
I've gotta say. to everyone.
2:20
AM
Hey,
uh. Thank you, all of you, for coming back for me. I know I wasn't
there for you this last week. I know I've been in my head, talking to
the villains, but. You guys still came back for me.
I want to
apologize for not being more present.
Each one of you matters to
me.
Danny, holy shit dude. In some ways you understand me more
than anyone else. You get what's important. Your trust doesn't come
easily, and that's gonna be a huge asset. And, at the end of the day,
you're one of my chao friends.
Derek. Been wanting to hang out
with you again for an entire year now, wanting nothing more than
that. We're band buddies. We're Rock Band buddies. We're everything.
Want to wander the Earth with you, and that's what we're gonna get to
do.
And you brought our groups together. You friend magnet.
Rauri.
I got you into Dream Theater. Hell, is there anyone in this car right
now who I didn't
get into Dream Theater? Danny. Well, Danny, it's a matter of "when."
But, okay, Rauri, you're a goddamn gamer. What do you want me to say.
It's unreal to get to see you.
And Donnie... you and me are
zig-zagging everywhere as it is. No Fear has managed to tear us
apart. No asshole with a gun has taken you away from me. My gratitude
to you is.. bigger
than the Earth.
All of you, I'm gonna make things right. I've
got your backs. I..
danny "yo, man, it's all good. you know
you didn't even need to apologize, yeah? not for nothing."
I..
yeah. Okay. I guess not. But someone told me I probably should have.
And if there's anything
that you've gotta know about me…
fentzy "there's a
million
things to know about you."
..it's that I make my words
good, and I make good on my word.
(Attached:
"We
travelled, then, for 13 hours by car, having an uneventful if
peaceful day, each making conversation with the other. Danny and I
spoke about anime, mostly. I know you were just dying to hear
that.
After Jordan's heartfelt little speech, which came out of
left field for us but makes.. somewhat more sense when actually
reading his journals, I interjected to inform him that I had failed
to make good on my own word. It wasn't anything serious, and it was
no promise I had made to him specifically, but I had promised myself
that, when we arrived back in Dominiere and busted into his hotel,
fighting off tons of Indisen goons guarding the sleeping prize, I
would have kicked his door down myself, stared those draining
tentacles right in the eye, put on my sunglasses, and said,
---Can
Jordan come out to play?
Of
course
when we got there, he was already awake and waiting for us, and the
town gave him up like a bad piece of cheese.
What a fucking
disappointment.
But
for once this is not all I have to say.
I have two things,
reader.
First-the-most:
After those 13 hours, when time
zones had taken us an hour further still, we stopped in a place
called Lethbridge. Made me think of memory loss, made me wonder why
Dominiere hadn't been called that. Jordan picked up his journal here
and wrote something.")
4:32
PM
Long
drive. The others can sleep, but I'm gonna stretch my legs.
Where
the hell is this, where did we park? Looks like a fucking casino.
4:33
PM
I
hear gunshots in the distance. Might be a backfiring car, or
something else electric out there. Either way it's people.
Think
we're safe right now. But if we have to move, we have to move.
I'm
having more of that squash. Kinda like this stuff. Anything's good
when you have
to drink it.
4:34
PM
Yeah.
Yeah,
I kinda like being on my own.
I always had trouble sleeping, for
as long as I can remember. I have early memories of being a little
kid, in a crib, just staring at the ceiling, calling for mum or dad
late in the night, until they just don't want to come anymore.
Then
getting older, and just.. being awake at night, in the darkness,
having a moment away from my brothers, a moment undisturbed, a moment
to give the social shit a rest and just.. think to myself.
And
when I finally had a bedroom to myself, a TV to myself, a computer to
myself, even on a school night I'd still be awake late at night,
because I had.. time.
Time to myself. Time to think things
through. Time to form opinions, time to decide.
It got to the
point where, when a day with family got bad,
I didn't need much convincing to just stay
in my room.
Not like staying in the bathroom. Hiding in the
bathroom has much worse memories. Hiding in the bathroom is just
temporary, knowing I still have to leave and face that knife again,
face those fists again, face...
Bedroom is permanent. Solitude,
permanent.
I did.. want friends. Of course I did.
But that
solitude conditioning buries itself deep. And my school experiences
had been lonely for way too long, so my life
had just been one long oscillation between different types of
solitude.
Because I was..
wait
4:37
PM
Who's
there?
Who's that, I can see your shadow.
Listen, I want no
trouble.
..around the corner, a head peeking out. Wide eyes
scanning me. Someone with blue hair.
..it might be, it might
not. got my sword ready.
...they went around the corner
again.
sticking a hand out. waving, to come.
o_o
4:38
PM
This
isn't, like. Any more discreet a place than the car park where we
just were. This is out on the street.
"I am not trying to
hide you from the
world;
I am trying to hide myself from your friends."
Well.
They're asleep.
"And we are going to speak aloud."
I
feel like they'd probably prefer it if we made our little talks open
with them, actually.
"We can do that later. You are here
now. Unless you do not want to speak to me? Do you want to speak to
me?"
Oh, of course I do, Salmacis. :)
"Am I still
your favorite Fear?"
By far.
"Excellent."
said with the same blank face, same blank tone. "May I read your
journals?"
4:51
PM
"You
have seen many things since we last spoke. Yet you are still
standing, and you have increased your number."
Yes! Yes,
we're.. I mean, I don't actually know if we're making much
progress?
"How
would you define 'progress' in this case?"
Doing some
damage to Rapture? o:
"Hm. No, perhaps not. But you have
won the support of the Musicians, and you continue to survive."
Yeah.
And I made it out of Dominiere!
"Yes. The..
underscore."
Yeah!!! ..I did make it out, right? Do you
know if I'm asleep right now?
"You
seem awake to me."
Wait. You prey on underscores, don't
you.
"Maybe."
That's a.. frighteningly coy
answer.
"You were having a soliloquy about experiences
before I approached you. I have much more experience being
frightening than I do being sweet. I can relate to your familiarity
with solitude because of this."
I.. huh. Y'know, I guess
I'm even kinda used to that too. Like, what I was gonna say, I was
starting to talk about school. And, like, people weren't afraid
of me... wait, no, I guess they kinda were, because of the anger
problems. I don't really think about that? Because I didn't.. like
getting angry, it's not like I was trying to be a bully, and I
usually just got angry at the adults,
not the other kids…
"Does that have something to do with
your experience in police custody?"
Yes. No. Kind of. There
were a few of those, and the time I got thrown in a police car was
because I literally did break the law, I trespassed on school
property after dark. I was just taking a late-night walk and thought
it'd be a cool place to be, but, uh, then I was stupid and came back
later in the same night. I was with someone else, but I'm not gonna
rat them out. Anyway that's not important.
I don't even really
want to talk about the anger problems. It had more to do with
problems at home that affected me throughout the schoolday. But, I
mean, that did
make people wary around me, and it made it even harder to make
friends.
But, goddammit, it was going to be an uphill struggle
even without that.
Because
I was the stinky
kid.
"Oh."
Could you tell?
"No. I just
was not expecting the anticlimax."
You. You couldn't tell?
o_o
"No, Rael. I suppose you do not smell like my
expectation of a more socially-adapted human, but it is the middle of
summer, and humanity as a whole has given up showering for
months."
Damn.
"So you are saying you are used to
solitude because you did not practice adequate hygiene, resulting in
alienation from your peers."
I didn't know
adequate hygiene! Or, man, maybe I did, but I never
showered all that much, even as a little kid. I guess I got away with
it. But then my clothes were dirty even when I did
shower.
"Was your family insistent on the children washing
their own clothes?"
God, no. My parents were just
dysfunctional. They assumed we were just okay, a lot of the time.
They assumed we showered. They assumed we just had
clean clothes somewhere. They assumed we were fed.
Usually
it was mum's job. And that's a lot to put on one person. We learned
quick that it was best not to tell dad if mum was failing, because
dad got really
angry at her, and it was a far bigger duty of ours that we just not
make dad angry, especially not at mum.
"I..
see."
So, like. I just had to take the hit. I had to go to
school stinky, and just keep my distance from people and hope they
wouldn't notice. But they did. And, at school, it was my
fault.
So. So.
Solitude!
End result was, I felt better
when I was on my own. I felt something like peace.
And that's
what I'm used to, because that was the.. status quo, for a very very
long time.
"Yes. But you have peers with you now, and you
are struggling with anxiety."
I am. I'm afraid this isn't
going to last long. That they'll leave me, or that I'll make
them leave me by.. turning out to be really bad?
4:54
PM
thank
you for the hug.
"I am still learning how to respond. You
need something like a therapist."
yeah. ._.;;
"I
wonder if it is relevant that Victoria has not left you in all this
time. You have not 'turned out to be' really bad from her
perspective."
Victoria. Donnie, right. Yeah. That's.. that
is something. But it's also just
been me and her, a one-on-one thing. That's more
manageable.
"Regardless, it answers your anxiety. It is
not, in fact, a mystery if you will become
really bad, not from first principles. As long as you stay true to
this... Rael that you have
been,
you will not become
something with drastic new morals."
this Rael that I have
been…
and that's. that's a good person. right?
"I
don't…"
from your perspective, as an outside observer, a
being of knowledge. to the best of your abilities, and you have so
many.
speaking to you as a human to his god...
Salmacis,
have I been a good person?
(Attached:
"Now
that Salmacis knew about another underscore, it sent a squad of
Camper, with blunt weapons and claws, to tear the place apart.
First
it took the Indisen, taping their mouths shut and carrying them
limb-by-limb to a private location to find out how they tick.
Knowing
full well by now that none of them can become Camper,
Salmacis elected to 'question' them the old-fashioned way: by moving
their organs outside of their bodies and asking them questions in
that state. Drugs can keep a body alive, awake, alert. Drugs can
anaesthetize, and drugs can heighten feeling too.
It learned a
lot from those Indisen. This wasn't her first underscore, so it knew
better questions to ask. Maybe you'll find some of those answers
later.
Second it brought hammers and shovels to Dominiere and
took it brick-by-brick, ripping up the floorboards, smashing the
windows to boost her reserves of broken glass, taking rusty nails,
taking splintered 2x4s…
All to get into the walls, and get
under the streets, get at the network of pipes and snakelike suction
tubes, get at the fluids they carried.
And Salmacis absolutely
did. Dominiere died, drained of blood, feeling its organs empty,
calling
out with its groaning architecture-- listen to those floorboards
squeak, hear those pipes settle-- crying
for its lost citizens to come and defend it, wondering where its
mother City was, completely ignorant to the fact that it, Dominiere,
was now going to a similar place to where its mother lay: in a bigger
god's stomach.
EAT ate well that day.
It
did think it strange that the blacksmith's armoury had no weapons in
it. These Indisen did not have the means to fight back against an
organized enemy. They simply did not expect Jordan to have an ally
like this.
They honestly believed that letting him go would cause less
trouble.")